[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 7]
[Senate]
[Pages 9002-9036]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT FOR DEFENSE, THE GLOBAL WAR 
 ON TERROR, AND TSUNAMI RELIEF ACT, 2005--CONFERENCE REPORT--Continued

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I believe, by unanimous consent, I am to 
be recognized at 2:15 for 15 minutes.
  I allocate 2\1/2\ minutes of that time to the Senator from Wisconsin, 
Mr. Kohl.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, although I will vote for this conference 
report, I feel obliged to alert my colleagues to a serious flaw. This 
bill does not provide enough international food aid. And if emerging 
reports are correct, I fear we are about to enter a spring and summer 
of agony in some of the poorest parts of the world.
  This situation troubles me a great deal. Here we are, the strongest 
nation on Earth, and we are rightfully appropriating funds to maintain 
that strength. But with enormous strength comes a moral obligation to 
respond appropriately to pain and suffering. This bill fails to respond 
appropriately.
  When the supplemental was first considered in this body, Senator 
DeWine and I and others offered an amendment to provide a total of $470 
million for PL-480 food aid. That may sound like a lot to some, but it 
totaled merely six-tenths of 1 percent of the total spending in the 
bill.
  Mr. President, $346 million of our amendment was intended to meet the 
U.S. share of world-wide food emergency needs as already identified by 
the U.S. Government. Another $12 million was slated to restore Food for 
Peace resources diverted to address the tsunami. Finally, $112 million 
was intended to restore food aid development projects that the United 
States has already pledged to other countries this year.
  It troubles me, and it should trouble everyone here, that we may not 
be able to deliver on those pledges. What a disturbing message that 
sends to the rest of the world. It says that while we may talk a good 
game on food aid, you cannot be too sure just where we stand when the 
going gets tough.
  The numbers in our amendment were not pulled out of thin air. They 
were the result of close analysis of the world situation. In light of 
new reports from Ethiopia, I worry that even the amounts included in 
our original amendment may have been, in fact, too conservative.
  Sadly, the conference reduced the food aid total to $240 million, a 
level that is well below a split with the level proposed by the 
administration and adopted by the House.
  I ask unanimous consent that an alert I received from several faith-
based organizations about the situation in Ethiopia be printed into the 
Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                      Flash Alert From JRP Members


                   Addis Ababa, Ethiopia--April 2005

       The three Churches and two Church-related agencies 
     (Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ethiopian Catholic Church, 
     Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, Catholic Relief 
     Services and Lutheran World Federation) who make up the 
     ecumenical Joint Relief Partnership feel compelled to bring 
     to

[[Page 9003]]

     the public's attention a situation that if not immediately 
     addressed in a forceful manner will bring about widespread 
     disaster resulting in untold suffering and death for a number 
     of people--a number that is rapidly approaching the 8-10 
     million mark of Ethiopian people at risk in 2005.
       This humanitarian situation has thus far received little 
     international attention for a variety of reasons, which in 
     addition to the reluctance of the Ethiopian Government to 
     advertise it are the following: Severe drought conditions. 
     The late start-up of the Ethiopian government's national 
     Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) which is meant to 
     provide multi-year support to over 5 million chronically food 
     insecure people. The lack of adequate resources to provide 
     food and non-food assistance to 3.1 million acute food 
     insecure people.
       Drought Conditions: The current reality is that the early 
     belg rains (February/March) have failed in many areas, 
     including East and West Hararghe and Arsi zones of Oromiya, 
     parts of Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples (SNNP) 
     and parts of Tigray. The situation is severe, with many 
     pocket areas showing high levels of global acute and severe 
     acute malnutrition in children under 5. As an example, 
     reports from the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness 
     Commission (DPPC) indicate that large numbers of severely 
     malnourished children are entering one hospital in East 
     Hararghe from three woredas seriously affected by 
     malnutrition.
       There are rising and alarming levels of distress migration 
     in certain areas, water is particularly scarce in some areas 
     and cereal prices are high.
       Delays in Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP): This is a 
     program designed to overcome people's dependence on food 
     assistance. While this is an important step, continued robust 
     response to emergency conditions is critical to ensure the 
     success of more developmentally oriented programs. 
     Unfortunately, this program, which was meant to begin in 
     January 2005, didn't start until late March in most areas of 
     the country and, in some areas, still has not begun. Without 
     going into details of why this foul-up occurred, the fact is 
     that people targeted under the PSNP have, in most cases, not 
     yet received the planned assistance and there are now 
     deteriorating health conditions, especially in women and 
     children. Many of the chronically food insecure now face 
     acute conditions, themselves.
       Poor Resourcing of 2005 Appeal: Current figures indicate 
     that 66% of food needs are pledged and only 10% of non-food 
     needs. It must be noted, however, that this includes an un-
     guaranteed WFP pledge. With the number of people requiring 
     assistance continually increasing, the level of resources 
     required is certain to increase significantly. While 66% 
     sounds promising, it should be noted that, using current 
     assessments going on, this figure may not adequately 
     represent the real need.
       Among the reasons for the low level of resources are: Donor 
     attention being focused on other emergencies (Darfur and 
     tsunami), greater emphasis being placed within the country on 
     PSNP rather than ongoing emergency needs, pressure to 
     demonstrate that the country is moving away from annual 
     Emergency Appeals, misleading recent WFP/FAO crop assessment 
     suggesting a 25% increase in yield over last year, and 
     traditional food donors having their own constraints.
       Unless commitments o food and non-food items are made 
     immediately, the JRP will not be able to pre-position food in 
     the most severely affected areas prior to the rainy season 
     which starts in June because of poor road conditions at that 
     time. This will lead to further setbacks and great loss of 
     life.
       It is with the above in mind, that the JRP is appealing to 
     its traditional Partners to bring this situation to the 
     world's attention and to act as promptly as possible.
       With every best wish, we remain, the JRP Members:
     Ethiopian Orthodox Church,
     Ethiopian Catholic Church,
     Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus,
     Catholic Relief Services,
     Lutheran World Federation.

  Mr. KOHL. This situation is not going to go away. I have grave fears 
that images coming out of places such as Ethiopia in the coming months 
may reveal a tragedy unfolding before our very eyes. And what is most 
troubling is that this may be a tragedy that we could have helped 
avoid.
  I will soon be sending a letter to the President encouraging him to 
consider other emergency authorities to address this dire situation. 
Specifically, we will ask him to utilize the Bill Emerson Humanitarian 
Trust to address this pain and suffering. I urge all my colleagues to 
join us in sending this message to the President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I commend my colleague from Wisconsin. I 
agree with all he has described. I think this is a really important 
issue and increased food aid is critically important. So I appreciate 
him being here.
  I will speak for a moment about this $82 billion supplemental bill. 
Most of it is to restore accounts in the U.S. Army and other military 
installations or military organizations because that money was not in 
the budget. We had asked last year that it be put in the appropriations 
process so that it could be considered. We know that we are going to 
spend money in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the administration, year after 
year, does not put any money in for these accounts and then comes back 
with an emergency request later.
  It is a fiction that is being created. We know this is costing money 
every single month. I guess the reason to do it on an emergency basis 
is so that nobody has to pay for it. This is $82 billion not paid for, 
just emergency, stack it on top of the debt and say to the troops: Go 
to Iraq, serve your country, do your duty and, by the way, when you 
come back we will have the debt waiting for you, so you have served in 
Iraq and you can also come back and pay for the cost of that. That does 
not make any sense to me.
  We had a small provision on the issue of government spending when 
this bill was before the Senate, and I want to talk about it for a 
moment. It dealt with the appointment of an independent counsel in 1995 
that was to investigate the allegation that a Cabinet official lied 
about payments he had made to his mistress. So an independent counsel 
was formed 10 years ago. That independent counsel was to investigate 
Mr. Cisneros, a man who I may have met in 1993 or 1994 and have not 
seen since. In any event, an independent counsel was appointed to 
investigate whether he lied about payments he had made to a mistress. 
Ten years ago, that independent counsel started working and spending 
money. In 1999, Mr. Cisneros, the subject of the investigation, pleaded 
guilty to a misdemeanor. In 2001, 2 years later, the President pardoned 
him. So 10 years ago the independent counsel was formed, 6 years ago 
the subject of the investigation pleaded guilty, and 4 years ago the 
subject of the investigation was pardoned by the President.
  This independent counsel is still in business and still spending 
money. In the last 6 months, the independent counsel has spent nearly 
$1.3 million. I offered an amendment, that the Senate passed, which 
says, tell them to finish by June and shut down. In fact, 2 years ago, 
the three-judge panel which supervises this independent counsel told 
him to wrap it up, and get it done. This independent counsel has now 
spent $21 million over 10 years, and so we offered an amendment that 
said, shut it down.
  The Senate accepted it. It went to conference and it was pulled out. 
So the independent counsel still spends money.
  The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial saying this was some 
nefarious amendment designed to try and protect some information that 
exists deep in the bowels about some scandal with the Internal Revenue 
Service--typical political sludge coming from the editorial page of the 
Wall Street Journal. Then we have the same sludge offered by Mr. Novak 
in his column, I believe it was last Thursday, suggesting there is 
something else going on here.
  Well, let me just say this: If we have enough money to have 
independent counsels continuing to be paid 6 years after the subject of 
their investigation pled guilty, and 4 years after they were pardoned, 
it is a high-water mark for bad judgment. It is unbelievable. All it 
describes to me, with respect to Mr. Novak and the folks who believe we 
should keep spending this money, is that even waste has a constituency, 
in some cases a very aggressive constituency.
  We really need to save the taxpayers' money, and this is an 
unbelievable waste of the taxpayers' money.
  Let me ask how much time I have remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eleven minutes.

[[Page 9004]]




                          Judicial Nominations

  Mr. DORGAN. Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled simply, ``All I 
Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.'' Many have read that 
book. Some of it is, of course, wash your hands, share, be nice to 
others. One, of course, is to tell the truth. That simple kindergarten 
lesson is lost in some cases and particularly in the media wars that go 
on over significant issues.
  I brought to the floor today some advertisements that are being run 
across the country in support of those who in this Senate Chamber are 
prepared to exercise what is called a self-described ``nuclear option'' 
by the majority. What is their nuclear option? Well, they are in kind 
of a snit. They do not get all of the judges approved--just over 95 
percent of the judges sent to us by the President. Now, because not 
every single judge has been approved by the Senate, the majority party 
is out of sorts, cranky, upset, and sufficiently so that they and the 
groups from outside this Chamber have decided what they ought to do is 
violate the rules of the Senate in order to change the rules of the 
Senate.
  Let me just point out what is happening as they lead up to this so-
called nuclear option where they violate the rules of the Senate. They 
are creating their own fiction. The President, by the Constitution, has 
the right to nominate Federal judges who will sit for a lifetime on the 
Federal bench. We have a separate responsibility to advise and consent. 
The President sends a name down, and we say yes or no.
  This President, George W. Bush, has sent 218 names of people he wants 
to serve for a lifetime on the Federal bench. We have approved 208 of 
them. Because they have not gotten approval for all of them, they have 
decided they want to violate the rules of the Senate in order to change 
the rules of the Senate.
  Let me give an example of one of the 10, Janice Rogers Brown. Here is 
what she says, and I am quoting her directly:

       Senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren 
     because they have a right to get as much free stuff as the 
     political system will permit them to extract.

  One does not have to be a rocket scientist to understand what this 
means. This is somebody whose philosophy believes that there is 
something inherently wrong with Social Security and Medicare. It is the 
old folks living off the rest of the country.
  I do not know, maybe it is a person who does not know senior 
citizens, has not visited a nursing home, does not understand what it 
is like to work without very much money, without resources, and wonder 
what their retirement is going to be like.
  Do I want this person sitting on the Federal bench? No. Am I pleased 
that I participated in saying, no, this person should not sit on the 
Federal bench? One can bet their life I am.
  There are groups that are advertising in our States, and they are 
saying this is an attack on people of faith if we do not support these 
judges, or it is an attack on a minority.
  Here is a religious organization that is running ads in States:

     . . . Never before has the political minority hijacked 
     democracy in this way. . . .

  This religious organization says, in paid political advertising:

     . . . Senate Democrats have abused the rules . . .

  Another religious organization states:

     . . . Never before in history have judges with majority 
     support been denied a vote by the misuse of the filibuster 
     rule. . . .

  Well, there are Ten Commandments and they can be found in the 20th 
chapter of Exodus. I suggest to those who throw around this issue of 
faith, those organizations that call themselves religious organizations 
and want to buy political ads and then not tell the truth in the ads, 
that they refer to the 20th chapter of Exodus and the ninth 
commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness. There are Ten 
Commandments, not nine. Do not skip the ninth when getting involved in 
this discussion.
  The least that is owed to the American people is the truth, and it is 
simply not true that the minority in the Senate has abused the rules, 
or has hijacked democracy. That is simply not true.
  The facts are that we have supported 208 of 218 nominees sent to us 
by this President. The facts are that the 60-vote requirement to get 
cloture in this Chamber is a requirement that has existed for a long 
time, and it is a requirement that is healthy for this Chamber. It is 
protective of the minority, whether it be Republican or Democrat. It is 
what requires compromise. Compromise is a good thing.
  There are some in this Chamber who think that no one should ever 
compromise. If one party runs the White House, the Senate and the 
House, they ought to have it their way all the time, and if they do not 
get it their way, they have a right to be angry and to change the rules 
of the Senate even if they violate the rules to do it.
  There is a way to change the rules of the Senate. It takes 67 votes. 
I hope the 67 votes is not in dispute.
  The majority has concocted a scheme by which with 51 votes they will 
change or attempt to change the rules of the Senate with something they 
mislabel as the nuclear option.
  This is something that disserves the interests of the Senate and the 
American people. We have very serious problems with health care costs. 
We have problems with the cost of prescription drugs. We have jobs 
moving overseas in unlimited quantity. We have trade deficits, the 
largest in the history of this country. We have serious energy 
problems, and guess what, we have a majority that has their nose bent 
out of shape because there are 10 judges out of 218 who somehow did not 
make it, and that is an affront to a majority that insists that they 
have it their way all the time. I didn't take Latin because I was in a 
high school senior class of nine, but I think the term ``totus porcus'' 
might just best describe what the majority party believes it is due on 
these issues. They want it all--the whole hog--right now. If they do 
not get it, they are prepared to go to the ultimate length that they 
describe as the nuclear option.
  My hope is that in the coming days, heads will clear, and they will 
rethink this approach. Both parties will be in the minority at some 
point. Both parties have been and will be in the future at some point. 
I believe any majority party, whether it be a Democratic Party or a 
Republican Party, that decides to break the rules to change the rules 
will rue the day that happens.
  I came here because I want to work in a constructive way on public 
policy. I hope we can continue to do that. But I read the Constitution 
again and again and understand what it says. It says this Government of 
ours works when we work together. The 60-vote majority in the Senate I 
know is nettlesome. I know it gets under people's skin. But it is what 
has always distinguished this Senate from other bodies. It is what 
requires compromise. It says to a President--any President, Republican 
or Democratic President--when you send a name down here for a lifetime 
appointment to the bench, it ought to be a name that reflects some 
semblance of compromise; and we have approved 208 of them. One of them 
I regret we approved. I voted against that one, by the way, a candidate 
for a lifetime appointment on the court who has written that he 
believes women are subservient to men. I do not think that person 
belongs on the bench, but the person made it through here. The fact is, 
208 of them are now serving for a lifetime on the Federal bench, which 
I think is extraordinary cooperation. I believe we have the lowest 
vacancy rate on the Federal bench that we have had for 15 years or 
more.
  It is profoundly disappointing to see what is going on around the 
country with a massive amount of money going to the television and 
radio stations, some by religious organizations, neck deep in politics, 
saying you know what the minority party is doing in the Senate is 
hijacking democracy and engaging in mischief, abusing the rules and so 
on and so forth. I again say to them that is, in my judgment, bearing 
false witness. They ought to know it.
  Let's have a real debate--a thoughtful debate, not a thoughtless 
debate--about how we proceed to address the major issues affecting 
America. Yes, the major issues: health care, trade,

[[Page 9005]]

jobs, energy--the sort of things that determine what kind of life our 
kids and grandkids are going to have, what kind of opportunity they are 
going to have.
  When they sit around the supper table at night as a family, what are 
the things people talk about? They talk about, Do I have a good job? 
Does it pay well? Does it have benefits? Can I care for my family with 
this income? Do Grandpa and Grandma have access to decent health care? 
Do we live in a safe neighborhood? Do we breathe air that is quality 
air and drink healthy water that is not going to injure our health? 
These are the kinds of things that are important to people. Do we send 
our kids to schools we are proud of? Yet, are we debating that on the 
floor of the Senate? No. No, regrettably not. That is not the central 
set of issues we are debating.
  We are now debating this so-called nuclear option. Why? Because out 
of 218 names sent to us by the President asking for a lifetime 
appointment to the Federal courts, we have approved only 208. We have 
approved only over 95 percent, and that is a problem for the majority.
  A majority will not long remain a majority if it does not understand 
the requirement that all of us have to work together: to compromise, to 
tell the truth, and to do what is best for this country.
  Mr. President, let me ask how much time I have remaining.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Three seconds.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me go much longer. I am sorry, for 3 
seconds let me thank my colleagues.
  This is the time to be controlled on our side by consent, if I might 
read it into the record? My guess is it will go back and forth: Senator 
Byrd, 20 minutes; Senator Reid, 15 minutes; Senator Salazar, 15 
minutes; Senator Corzine, 10 minutes; Senator Obama, 10 minutes, 
Senator Lieberman, 10 minutes; Senator Leahy, 15 minutes; Senator 
Durbin, 1 hour, 10 minutes of that to go to Senator Murray; and Senator 
Feingold, 10 minutes.
  Let me ask by consent to understand that is the progress on our side, 
understanding it would be interspersed with Republican speakers.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Reserving the right to object, let me ask the Senator, 
if I may, does the total of that amount of time exceed the amount under 
the order that your side of the aisle has been granted, or is it less 
than that?
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am told this is within the time that has 
been granted.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am here to talk about the 
supplemental appropriations bill. While the Senator from North Dakota 
is here--he is one of the best speakers in the Senate. He can take a 
story, tell it, and be clear about what he is saying. He has spoken 
eloquently about the need for a compromise. I will suggest one to him. 
I suggested it 2 years ago when I came to the Senate and heard the 
debate about Judge Estrada. I said at that time that, even if a 
Democratic President were elected, that I would never vote to 
filibuster his nomination. In other words, I would always vote to give 
a President of the United States a fair up-or-down vote on the floor of 
the Senate on his or her nominee.
  I have repeated my pledge to do that on this floor several different 
times, and, I would say to my friend from North Dakota, if he would get 
8 or 10 Democrats to make the same pledge, there would not be any 
filibuster. There would be no need for a rules change. We could talk 
about gas prices, we could talk about schools, and we could talk about 
the war in Iraq. So that spirit of compromise is there.
  I was not here during whatever went on before, and, whatever it was, 
I wish it had not gone on. What I can remember, going back to 1967, 
which is when I came to this body as a legislative aide even before the 
President pro tempore was a Senator, is that all during that time this 
tactic was not used to deny a President an up-or-down vote on his 
judicial nominees. The only possible argument during that time was the 
case of Abe Fortas in 1968, and that was a little different.
  But put all that to the side, the ``who shot John'' or ``who didn't 
shoot John.'' If several on that side and several on this side would 
simply say, as a way of avoiding this train wreck, that we would pledge 
right now, during our time here, always to vote to give a President an 
up-or-down vote on his or her judicial nominees, then there would be no 
need for a rules change, and we could go on to our other business.
  Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. I will be happy to.
  Mr. DORGAN. Let me just observe, because the Senator mentioned me, my 
point of supporting the 60-vote threshold is that is what requires 
compromise. The very presence of the filibuster is what requires 
compromise. Otherwise you do not have any incentive to compromise, be 
it the executive branch relative to the legislative branch. That was 
not my point. It wasn't that we should find a way to allow the nuclear 
option to exist without changing the rules of the Senate.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I appreciate my friend's point. May I 
make my remarks now?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, the supplemental appropriations bill is 
going to come up. We are going to vote on it. I commend the chairman of 
the committee for accomplishing what is a difficult job--getting a body 
that operates by unanimous consent to agree on something and moving it 
through.
  The purpose of the bill is to support the men and women who are 
fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was there about a month ago. There 
are so many Tennesseans in Kuwait and Afghanistan and Iraq that it 
seemed like a Tennessee homecoming. There are literally thousands 
there--the postmasters of Winfield and Rob Camp. The President of the 
Rotary Club in Lexington, a physician, just came home. The editor of 
the newspaper in Dyersburg, two deputy sheriffs from my home county, 
the superintendent of schools from Athens--these are people in the 
Reserves or in the National Guard with mortgages and families and jobs, 
with money and insurance issues at home. They are fighting for us. Some 
are dying, and they are risking their lives every day. Of course I want 
to vote to spend every penny we need to spend to support them and to 
keep them safe.
  Once we set forward on a mission, on a military mission, we should 
have the stomach to see it all the way through to the end in a success 
strategy, not an exit strategy, and to support the American men and 
women whom we ask to go.
  That does not stop me from objecting and expressing my disappointment 
to two provisions in the bill. One is the so-called REAL ID Act. 
Actually, unlike a lot of legislation we pass here, this is well named. 
This really is a national identification card for the United States of 
America for the first time in our history. We have never done this 
before, and we should not be doing it without a full debate. This REAL 
ID provision turns 190 million driver's licenses, which are now 
ineffective ID cards, into more effective national identification 
cards. To add insult to injury, we have also slapped State governments 
with the bill for them.
  I strongly object to this. When I was Governor of Tennessee, I vetoed 
our State ID card twice because I thought it was an infringement on 
civil liberties. I thought that driver's licenses are for driving. If 
we need an ID card, we should have an ID card. The legislature 
overruled me. I actually had to get one of those cards myself in order 
to get into the White House, so I lost that battle. So I am very 
reluctant for this country to have a national ID card. But I 
reluctantly concluded that, after 9/11, we have to have one and that we 
ought to be thinking about what would be the best kind of ID card.
  I believe the right way to consider that is when we are dealing with 
comprehensive legislation on immigration, which I hope we do this year, 
and tackle that problem and the best way to do

[[Page 9006]]

it. Is the best way to do it to turn the driver's licenses examiners in 
all the States of the country issuing 190 million driver's licenses 
into CIA agents? I don't know what it is like in Ohio or other States, 
but in Tennessee the driver's licenses examiners by and large are there 
for the purpose of figuring out whether you can parallel park and to 
take your picture. They are not trained to tell whether you are an al-
Qaida terrorist. They are not trained in order to review four different 
documents and then look at 10,000, maybe 20,000 different databases 
around the country.
  I wonder whether it is even the right approach, in terms of having a 
national ID card, to rely on driver's licenses. Maybe we should be 
relying on passports. That has been an efficient system in this 
country. Or maybe even better, and I suspect this would be better, we 
should turn the Social Security card--which is directly related to 
work, which is the subject of the discussion and most of the concern 
about immigration--into a more definite kind of identification.
  But no; instead, without one single hearing in the Senate about a 
national ID card--which we might not, under our Constitution, even be 
able to require to be presented to a law enforcement officer--we just 
pass one, and then we send the bill to the States.
  Here we are, a Republican Congress who got elected in 1994 promising 
to end unfunded mandates--and the Senator in the chair was one of the 
leaders in doing that--and what do we do, we come up with this big 
idea, pass it, hold a press conference, and send the bill to the 
Governors. We do that time after time after time, and we should not be 
doing that. That is not the way our system works.
  It is possible that some Governor may look at this and say: Wait a 
minute, who are these people in Washington telling us what to do with 
our driver's licenses and making us pay for them, too? We will just use 
our own licenses for certifying drivers, and Congress can create its 
own ID card for people who want to fly and do other Federal things. And 
if Congress doesn't do that, then we will give out the home telephone 
numbers of all the Congressmen and let the people--of California, say--
call everybody up here and say, ``why did you keep me off the airplane 
when I needed to get somewhere?''
  That is what we have done. We have just assumed that every single 
State will want to ante up, turn its driver's licenses examiners into 
CIA agents, and pay hundreds of millions of dollars to do an almost 
impossible task over the next 3 years.
  We did that without any recognition in this legislation that we are 
not the State government, we are the Federal Government, and, if we 
want a national ID card, we should be creating a Federal ID card. If we 
want the States to create one, we should talk to them about it, and 
then we should pay for it.
  So in the end, the States will pay the costs. In the end, the States 
will listen to the complaints from citizens who are going to be 
standing in long lines while they search for four kinds of 
identification; the driver's license examiner tries to connect with 
thousands of databases, which they have no capacity to do today. The 
States will take the blame when somebody uses a driver's license 
inappropriately.
  The REAL ID Act has been structured in such a way that it is not 
technically an unfunded mandate, but anybody listening to this debate 
knows it violates the spirit of our promises in 1994 and 1995 not to do 
this anymore.
  So I intend to offer an amendment at the appropriate time that will 
have two main points, but the overall point is to have the Federal 
Government pay for the cost of this new requirement that the States 
have no choice but to accept. It will allow States to submit 
documentation to the Department of Homeland Security of what the costs 
are, and it will establish a process to pay the annual increase in 
those costs.
  I wish we had done this in a different way. I think we should have 
honestly faced the fact that we now need some sort of national 
identification card. I say that reluctantly because, as I said, I 
vetoed even a State card. But times have changed. But to do this 
without a hearing and without our tradition of respect for civil 
liberties and our respect for federalism, I think is wrong.
  Mr. President, if I may take 2 more minutes, I would like to express 
my disappointment with one other provision. This conference report says 
we do not trust President Bush in dealing with the Palestinian 
Territory. Here we are, a Republican Congress, at least by a majority, 
with a Republican President who is leading a lot of the world to 
freedom, who is just returning from a triumphant visit to Georgia--a 
great beacon--who has taken the courageous step of trying to help solve 
the Middle East problems, and we are saying: Mr. President, we are 
going to appropriate money to help with the emerging democracy in the 
Palestinian Territory, but we do not trust you to spend the money.
  That is what this provision does. The Senate did not vote that way. 
The Senate voted another way. The Senate voted to give the President 
the right to waive the authority, giving the President the right to 
decide, in effect, who got the money.
  The reason I think the provision makes so little sense is because we 
are going to turn around and say in a few weeks, as the Israelis pull 
out of the Gaza Strip, Who is responsible for security there? We are 
going to expect the Palestinian Authority to be responsible for 
security there. Who is responsible for feeding some of the poorest 
people in the world? We are going to expect the Palestinian Authority 
to be responsible for that.
  If we are going to hold the Palestinian Authority responsible, the 
President might want to give them the money. Arafat is dead. There is a 
new finance minister there who has impressed all of us on a bipartisan 
basis.
  He was born in Palestine, lived here, and got his degree at the 
University of Texas. He is doing things in a way that is open. He has 
earned the confidence of people all over the Middle East. He is taking 
control of the money. And if he stopped doing that, the President could 
stop giving him the money.
  But why in the world would the Congress show such a lack of respect 
to the President of the United States, in the middle of a peace 
process, by saying: ``No, Mr. President, we do not trust you to make a 
decision about what to do with the money that we appropriate for the 
Palestinian Authority or to help the Palestinian Territory emerge as a 
democracy''?
  So I am very disappointed by that as well. And there is other money 
that has been authorized this year that does give the President that 
authority. I hope in future conferences and in future debates and 
discussions we recognize that Arafat is dead, there is hopefully a 
democracy emerging, and there is a finance minister there who is making 
public accounting of all the money. He is direct depositing money for 
the troops. He is publicly advertising it through bids. He has 
impressed his neighbors, and he has impressed all of us who have 
visited with him on a bipartisan basis. I hope we keep that in mind as 
we consider this issue.
  Thank you, Mr. President, for the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, how much time do I have?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty minutes.
  Mr. BYRD. Twenty minutes. Mr. President, I yield myself such time as 
I may consume within that 20-minute limitation.
  I again thank Chairman Thad Cochran for his patience in the 
processing of this supplemental appropriations bill when it came before 
the Senate. He was especially patient during the Senate consideration 
in seeing that all who wanted to offer amendments were afforded the 
opportunity to be heard.
  The members of the Appropriations Committee have had a longstanding 
sense of cooperation, comity, and civility. There is always give and 
take, live and let live, on both sides of the aisle. And that was the 
same with regard to the Senate processing of this supplemental. 
Everybody did not get everything he or she wanted in this supplemental, 
but Members were treated fairly in a bipartisan manner.

[[Page 9007]]

  However, when it came to processing the supplemental in conference, 
several members were severely disappointed that the conference was 
recessed subject to the call of the Chair. As a result, several 
Senators were precluded from offering their motions and their 
amendments.
  A number of Members on this side of the aisle have expressed 
disappointment that the conference did not have any open debate on the 
immigration provisions, including the REAL ID legislation, that found 
their way into the bill, and that neither the majority nor the minority 
of the Senate Appropriations Committee participated in the formulation 
of the REAL ID immigration provisions.
  These REAL ID provisions were formulated behind closed doors by the 
House and Senate Republican leadership. After the conference had 
recessed subject to the call of the Chair, a 55-page modified version 
of the REAL ID authorizing legislation was laid into the conference 
report.
  It was simply grafted onto the emergency supplemental appropriations 
bill that provides funding for our military operations and our troops, 
without debate or participation by the conferees. I do not fault the 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee. This was not his doing. This 
was done by the House and Senate Republican leadership.
  The bill totals approximately $82 billion, which comes in at about $1 
million below the request. Virtually the entire bill is designated as 
an emergency, thus increasing the deficit.
  Department of Defense totals $75.9 billion, $0.9 billion above the 
request.
  International assistance totals $4.1 billion, which is $1.5 billion 
below the request, but it grew in conference to levels $866 million 
more than the House and $42 million more than the Senate.
  Border security funding totals $450 million of new emergency 
spending. This compares to my conference motion to include $665 million 
for border security. In order to increase the size of the border 
security effort, staff identified $100 million of low priority homeland 
security funds to use as offsets, bringing the total package to $550 
million.
  Despite having taken credit for improving security on our borders 
when he signed the Intelligence Reform Act in December, the President 
requested no actual funding for border security. My initiative, with 
the support of Homeland Security Subcommittee Chairman Judd Gregg and 
Senator Larry Craig, will result in 500 more Border Patrol agents, 218 
new immigration investigators and detention officers, 1,950 more 
detention beds, 170 support personnel, and funds for training and 
housing the new personnel.
  Many of the President's requests for expanded flexibilities were 
substantially reduced in the Senate bill and sustained in conference.
  The President's request for $5 billion transfer authority for Defense 
Department funds contained in the supplemental bill was reduced to $3 
billion.
  In combination, under the conference report, the Secretary of Defense 
has transfer authority in fiscal year 2005 of $10.7 billion, down from 
a total of $14.7 billion requested.
  The President's request for authority to spend contributions to the 
Defense Cooperation Account in fiscal year 2005, without subsequent 
approval by the Congress, was rejected as it should have been.
  The President's request for a $200 million slush fund, entitled the 
Global War on Terrorism, GWOT, Fund, under the control of Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice, was rejected as it should have been.
  The President's request for a $200 million ``Solidarity Fund'' for 
the Secretary of State, under Peacekeeping Operations, to reimburse 
coalition partners--such as, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary, and 
Bulgaria--for defense costs, was approved at a level of $230 million, 
of which $30 million can be used for GWOT-type activities. However, the 
act requires consultation and notification of the Congress prior to 
using the money.
  The conference report includes language that I authored prohibiting 
executive branch agencies from creating prepackaged news stories unless 
the agency clearly identifies that the story was created and funded by 
an executive agency. It troubles me greatly that there has been a 
proliferation of executive branch agencies creating so-called news 
stories and then distributing them without identifying the story as 
having been produced with the taxpayer's money. We trust the media to 
provide us with independent sources of information, not biased news 
stories produced by executive branch agencies, at whose expense, 
taxpayer expense.
  On February 17, 2005, the Government Accountability Office issued a 
legal opinion to the executive agencies stating that such prepackaged 
news stories violated the law. Regrettably, on March 11, 2005, the 
Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum to agency heads 
specifically contradicting the opinion of the Government Accountability 
Office.
  This conference report ``confirms the opinion of the Government 
Accountability Office dated February 17, 2005.'' I am pleased that the 
conferees and now the Congress have agreed to this clear message that 
taxpayer dollars should not be used to create prepackaged news stories 
unless the story includes a clear message that the story was created by 
a Federal agency and paid for by taxpayer dollars.
  I was also pleased that the conferees agreed to my sense of the 
Senate language on budgeting for the war in Iraq. The conference report 
says that the President should submit a budget amendment for fiscal 
year 2006 by September 1, 2005, and should include funds in his fiscal 
year 2007 budget for the war when it is transmitted in February.
  Congress has now appropriated over $210 billion. That is $210 for 
every minute since Jesus Christ was born. Think of that. Congress has 
now appropriated over $210 billion in four different emergency 
supplementals for the war in Iraq. That is a lot of money, and it is 
your money, $210 billion. It is your money, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, your 
money. Two hundred ten billion dollars for the war in Iraq, and there 
is no end in sight.
  We should not continue to fund the war through ad hoc emergency 
supplemental bills that are funneled through the Congress quickly when 
our troops are running out of funding.
  The conference report also includes my proposed 3-month extension of 
the Abandoned Mines Land Program. Last fall, I offered, and the 
Congress approved, a 9-month extension of the program in order to give 
the authorizing committees time to act. Unfortunately, since last fall, 
the authorizers have held no hearings and considered no bills on the 
matter. So once again I urge the authorizing committees to approve this 
legislation that is important to West Virginia and important to all 
other coal-producing States.
  Finally, I thank the staff on both sides of the aisle. On the 
majority side, I thank Keith Kennedy, Clayton Heil, Les Spivey, Sid 
Ashworth, Paul Grove, Rebecca Davies, and all of the others. On my own 
side, the minority side, I thank that man from Notre Dame, our minority 
staff director, Terry Sauvain. I thank his very able deputy, Charles 
``Chuck'' Kieffer. These are two the likes of which you will never see 
again. I also thank Charlie Houy, Tim Rieser, B.G. Wright, Chad 
Schulken, and all of the others on the minority side who worked the 
long hours--I mean long hours--to assist Senators in the production of 
the final conference report.
  Mr. President, there were some problems in conference, most notably 
the recessing at the call of the Chair and not returning, which left 
some of our members unable to offer motions. During the recess, 55 
pages of modified REAL ID immigration legislation were inserted into 
the conference report, sight unseen, by the conferees. Now, can you 
imagine that? That would not have happened when I was chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee. That would not have happened when I was 
majority leader of the Senate. I will tell you, I don't blame our 
chairman or any committee members for this situation, but I do 
acknowledge that there were problems.
  Nevertheless, the conference report provides the necessary funds for 
our troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan,

[[Page 9008]]

and elsewhere. I will always support money for our troops, may God 
bless them. I support them. We must support our troops, our men and 
women. They didn't ask to go there. They are doing their duty. They are 
answering the call. I do not support the policies that sent them there. 
I did not support it in the beginning. I did not vote to authorize this 
President or any other President to use the military of this country as 
he might see fit. I did not cast my vote there. I never, at any time, 
believed that Saddam Hussein, for whom I did not carry any brief--or 
the country of Iraq posed a national security threat to our country. I 
said so then, I say it now, and I believe that. So I did not vote for 
the policies that sent them there and keep them there. There is no end 
in sight. It bleeds our country of money and blood. No, I don't support 
that policy, and I didn't support it when the President sent our men 
and women there. But I do support the troops. I support them and will 
always support the troops of our country--may God bless them.
  Nevertheless, the conference report, as I say, does provide the 
necessary funds for our troops in the field in Iraq, Afghanistan, and 
elsewhere. I supported the war in Afghanistan because there was al-
Qaida. Al-Qaida attacked us. Al-Qaida invaded our country when it 
toppled the Twin Towers, and struck the Pentagon, and drove a plane 
into the ground in Pennsylvania. I supported that war. But there are 
two wars, the one in Afghanistan and the second war in Iraq--a country 
which did not invade our country, a country which did not strike our 
country, and a country which posed no security threat to our country.
  But that is neither here nor there when it comes to our troops. That 
is something else. We will support our troops. I thank the Chairman for 
his excellent work, for his cooperation and fine leadership in our 
Committee, and for his support of the troops likewise. I urge the 
adoption of the conference report.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi is recognized.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, as Senators know, there is time for 
debate of the conference report, for Senators to come over and speak, 
if they so choose, about the provisions of this bill and the effort we 
have made to meet the challenge the President has laid before us, and 
that is to produce a bill that provides funding for support for our 
troops and other officials from the State Department and other agencies 
who are engaged in operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the global 
war on terror. The majority of the money provided in this legislation 
is for those purposes.
  I am pleased the committee was able to restrain the temptation that 
always exists to add money that was over and above the request made by 
the President. The fact of the matter is that this committee showed 
discipline and commitment to fiscal restraint. We brought a bill back 
in the initial stages of this process that was below the request made 
by the President and that was below the request provided in the House-
passed bill.
  Our Senate Appropriations Committee reported legislation providing 
funding that was lower than either one of those documents. In 
conference with the House, we did resolve differences. There was give 
and take. Both sides had their opportunity to speak. We met on two 
separate occasions with our Senate conferees, joining representatives 
from the House in a wide range of discussion. Nobody was cut off when 
they wanted to discuss the issues or offer alternatives to provisions 
of the House-passed bill. The REAL ID provision that has come up, which 
some have complained about, was not a product of the Senate's action. 
It was put into the bill on the House side, but it was in conference. 
Because that legislation contained immigration issues and the 
identification issue, there were those in the Senate who offered 
germane amendments on the broad, general subject of immigration policy, 
guest worker provisions, quotas, workers who could come from foreign 
countries into the United States. The Senate will remember that we have 
debated several amendments on those subjects. We approved some and we 
rejected some.
  In conference with the House, a majority of the conferees of the 
Senate worked with a majority of the conferees in the House to get a 
compromise conference report. That has been brought back to the House 
now and passed by a substantially overwhelming margin, 368 to 40-
something, as I recall.
  The Senate is prepared to wind up debate in a matter of an hour or 
two, under the order that has been entered. I hope the Senate will give 
support to this conference report and overwhelmingly approve it. It 
reflects strict discipline in the appropriations process, but at the 
same time it provides the funds needed for those who are engaged in the 
important operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to safeguard the security 
of our country and to promote democracy and help ensure a safer world. 
I am hopeful the Senate will approve the conference report.
  I am prepared to yield the floor. Seeing no Senator seeking 
recognition, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I was curious when I put in the 
suggestion that a quorum be present as to how time would be charged 
under the time that is being used now under the quorum call.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The quorum call is charged to the Senator who 
suggests the absence of a quorum.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, since there are no Senators on either 
side present, I ask unanimous consent that the time be charged equally 
between both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I believe under the order the Senator from 
Vermont has some time reserved.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, 15 minutes.
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair. I will use part of it.
  I am voting for the supplemental, but I have grave misgivings about 
the President's policy in Iraq, the enormous strain it is putting on 
our Armed Forces, the horrific toll of the insurgency on innocent 
Iraqis, but especially the lack of a credible exit strategy.
  We tried to get legislative language considered that would link the 
training and equipping of Iraqi security forces to the phased 
withdrawal of our troops. That made sense. As we train them and they 
are able to take over responsibility for security, we should withdraw 
our troops. The White House would not even consider this. I suspect had 
the White House asked our troops in the field or the American people, 
they would say that is what they want. It is also what most Iraqis 
want.
  I am voting for the supplemental because I am concerned about our 
troops, many who were sent to fight and some of whom have died--as we 
understand from the press, even though we could not get this from the 
administration--without the proper armor. I opposed their deployment to 
Iraq, and I want to see them return home as quickly as possible, but in 
the meantime, I want them to have the best protection and equipment. 
They were sent into harm's way by the order of the Commander in Chief, 
and they should be protected as well as they can be.
  There are other reasons I am voting for the supplemental, but I want 
to mention one in particular. There is a

[[Page 9009]]

provision which I sponsored and Senators Boxer and Feinstein of 
California cosponsored which designates the program to assist innocent 
Iraqi victims of the military operations as the Marla Ruzicka Iraqi War 
Victims Fund.
  This program, and one like it in Afghanistan, was inspired by Marla 
Ruzicka of Lakeport, CA. She died on April 16, 2005, at the age of only 
28, from a car bomb in Baghdad. Marla's colleague and friend, Faiz Ali 
Salem, also died in that attack, both were on a mission of mercy.
  I first met Marla 3 years ago. She worked closely with me and my 
staff, especially Tim Rieser of my Appropriations Committee staff, from 
the day after she arrived in Washington in 2002 until the day she died. 
In fact, Tim received e-mails and photographs of her holding a child 
she had helped that came in just hours before she was killed.
  She was an extraordinarily courageous, determined young woman. She 
brought hope and cheer to everyone she met, from our military to people 
who were suffering from the ravages of the war. But she did it 
especially for the families of Afghan and Iraqi civilians who were 
killed or wounded as a result of the military operations. She felt 
passionately that part of being an American is to acknowledge those who 
have suffered and help their families piece their lives back together.
  Who would not agree with that? By showing them a compassionate face 
of America, she not only gave them hope, she helped overcome some of 
the anger and resentment many felt toward our great country.
  Over 90 percent of the casualties of World War I were soldiers. That 
changed in World War II. And since then, it is overwhelmingly civilians 
who suffer the casualties.
  Rosters are kept of the fallen soldiers, as they should be, but no 
official record is kept or made public of the civilians who died. That 
is wrong. It denies those victims the dignity of being counted, the 
respect of being honored, and it also prevents their families from 
receiving the help they need.
  In her young life, Marla forced us to face the consequences of our 
actions in ways that few others have. Even more importantly, she made 
us do something about it. She brought both parties in this Chamber 
together to help. What she did in Afghanistan and Iraq by the time she 
was 28, the end of her short life, was an achievement of a lifetime, 
far more than most people do in a much longer life.
  This Saturday, from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, I am going to host a 
gathering in the Senate caucus room in the Russell Building so that 
anyone who is interested can learn more about Marla's work and the U.S. 
Government programs she inspired. I hope we can discuss ways for all of 
us to continue the campaign on behalf of innocent victims of conflict.
  I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for supporting 
naming this program after her. I want the work she started to continue. 
I doubt that we will see another person quite so remarkable as Marla, 
but I have to think there are a lot of other Americans who would want 
help if we give them the support they need.
  I see the distinguished Senator from Connecticut in the Chamber. I 
reserve the remainder of my time and yield the floor to him.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to support the supplemental 
appropriations bill. I do so because it supports the men and women of 
the American military, in my opinion the greatest fighting force in the 
history of the world. I say that, really having thought about it. It 
supports them in their efforts to advance the cause of freedom and to 
protect the security of every American by what they are doing to fight 
terrorism and terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  I do want to note, however, my strong objections to House provisions 
known as the REAL ID Act that have been included in the conference 
report. The REAL ID Act will repeal ID security provisions enacted with 
overwhelming bipartisan support last year at the urging of the 9/11 
Commission and place them with rigid and unworkable Federal mandates on 
State government for the issuance of driver's licenses, long 
exclusively a matter of State law.
  The conference report from the House also includes punitive 
immigration provisions we rejected last year and that have no place on 
an emergency spending bill. In my opinion, our Nation is safer if we 
continue to implement the protections we passed last December rather 
than allow an ideological debate over immigration policy to derail 
those initiatives so vital to the war against terrorism.
  Notwithstanding my strong objections to the REAL ID components of the 
conference report, I strongly support the report and I do so based 
particularly on a visit I was able to make last week to Iraq, the third 
I have been privileged to make in the last 10 months. I am back feeling 
we are at a tipping point and it is moving in the right direction in 
Iraq. It requires the sustained, strong, and visible American support 
that is expressed in this supplemental appropriations.
  There is no doubt that the recent spate of suicide bombings has 
riveted the media's attention and as a result the attention of the 
American people, but I assure my colleagues those suicide bombings and 
those suicide bombers are a small, though devastating, part of life in 
Iraq today. They have got to be understood in context.
  I come back from Iraq seeing it this way: There are more than 25 
million people in Iraq. Eight million of them came out in the face of 
terrorist threats to vote for self-governance on January 30 of this 
year. They have stood up a government which is impressive and 
inclusive. Their military is gaining strength and self-sufficiency 
every day. There are 25 million on one side wanting to live a better, 
freer life. On the other side are the insurgents, the terrorists, the 
enemy, variously estimated at 10,000 to 12,000, some would say less.
  For as long as I can remember as a member of the Senate Armed 
Services Committee in briefings we have received and on previous trips 
to Iraq when I have asked who are these insurgents, every other time I 
have been told most of them are former regime elements, leftovers from 
Saddam Hussein who want to go back into power and stop this new 
government, particularly a government which represents the majority of 
people in Iraq, Shi'a Muslims, to take power.
  Then I was always told a minority is terrorists who are people 
associated with Zarqawi and al-Qaida. This time it began to turn around 
and that is a very significant development.
  I was informed that the number of former regime elements, the number 
of Iraqi Sunni Muslims involved in the insurgency, is dropping. In 
fact, some of them have begun to reach out to come over to the other 
side because they see the future tipping in another direction. However, 
there is an increase in the movement into Iraq of foreign terrorists. 
Sometimes they are people recruited over the Internet, recruited at 
religious sites, coming into Iraq usually from Syria for as short as a 
day before they are strapped with bombs, sent in a vehicle aimed at a 
crowd of Iraqis in a marketplace, sent to be in a line of Iraqis ready 
to enlist in the Iraqi military or in the police force, who then blow 
themselves up.
  What I am saying is there is a historic transformation going on in 
Iraq that already has and, if it can continue to go with our support, 
will resonate throughout the Arab world. I know that as the American 
people every night see only the suicide bombings, they begin to lose 
hope about what is happening in Iraq. I appeal to the American people 
to understand that those bombings, as devastating as they are, are the 
result of the fanatical work of a minority of people, the same people 
who attacked us on September 11, 2001--same attitude, same mindset, 
same hatred. If we diminish our support for our presence in Iraq today 
for the Iraqis who want so desperately to find a better life and govern 
themselves, we will have lost a moment of historic opportunity and we 
will ultimately pay the price for it ourselves.

[[Page 9010]]

  I had the opportunity to meet with the new leadership of Iraq, the 
new President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader for decades, 
who many of us have met and come to know, a good man, a strong man. I 
sat with him and realized this is the duly elected successor to the 
brutal, murdering dictator Saddam Hussein. It is a miracle, something 
that neither he nor I, nor most of us, and particularly the Iraqi 
people, could have imagined just a few years ago. President Talabani 
deserves our support.
  I met with the new Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. I never met 
him before. He is a good man. I found him to be thoughtful, strong, 
clear, very religious, very inclusive. Neither the Shi'a nor the Kurds 
who suffered terribly under Saddam--and one might understand the human 
instinct for revenge--have yielded to it. They have reached out to the 
Sunnis. We have not seen it in the papers and on the TV, but they are 
reaching out to bring them into the Government to try to create a 
leadership by consensus that will assure a better future for the Iraqi 
people.
  I want to say a final word about the American military. As I said at 
the outset, it is the finest in the world. It deserves our support. The 
election, the negotiations with the Sunnis, the increasing capability 
of the Iraqi military, all bring Iraq to a tipping point in the right 
direction. It is historic. The American military understands what is 
going on. I had the privilege, over the last 16 years, to visit many of 
our men and women in uniform around the world. I have never seen our 
military more proud of what they are doing, with morale higher, more 
skillful, better equipped to carry out the mission than they are 
carrying out. This bill helps them to do what we have asked them to do.
  I want to say, finally, that we have to exploit this moment, this 
tipping point, and act aggressively with the Iraqi government to bring 
over more of the insurgents, thus isolating the foreign fighters, the 
terrorists, the al-Qaida/Zarqawi network people, and making it harder 
for them to move freely and resupply themselves.
  This has really now become quite explicitly a war against the 
terrorist movement that struck us on September 11, 2001. That, to me, 
means moving aggressively to close the border with Syria to stop the 
flow of terrorists, and further help bring stability to Iraq. Operation 
Matador, now in its third day in Iraq near the Syrian border, is the 
kind of sustained military effort we need. Our pride, our prayers, our 
gratitude go out to the Marines and others in the American military who 
have advanced Operation Matador with such remarkable success.
  Our engagement in Iraq is crucial. It is in the best bipartisan 
traditions of American foreign policy that run from Woodrow Wilson to 
George W. Bush, with a lot of good Democratic and Republican Presidents 
in between. This supplemental supports that policy. It advances the 
cause of freedom. It protects American security. It supports the 
American men and women who are performing so valiantly and 
constructively. I urge its adoption. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, today I will cast my vote in support of 
the conference report on the 2005 supplemental appropriations bill for 
Iraq, Afghanistan, and tsunami relief. I do so despite my strong 
objections to the administration's policy of continuing to fund our 
military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through emergency 
supplemental bills. These needs should be addressed in the regular 
budget request so that they can actually be paid for, not placed on the 
tab of the American people so that debt can pile up. But the fact 
remains that our troops on the ground need timely support, and I will 
cast my vote to see that they get it, and the victims of the horrifying 
2004 tsunami in South and Southeast Asia are provided with some 
meaningful relief and assistance.
  I am pleased that the conferees retained my amendment to make it 
easier for the families of injured servicemembers to travel to the 
bedsides of their loved ones. I am disappointed that a sunset provision 
was added to this common-sense measure, and I will continue fighting to 
ensure that the benefits to military families provided by my amendment 
become permanent.
  My vote in support of this conference report also comes with serious 
reservations because it contains the extremely troublesome immigration 
and driver's license provisions of the REAL ID Act, which the House 
passed as an amendment to this bill.
  I strongly support efforts to curb illegal immigration and to prevent 
terrorists from entering our country to do harm. But as we work to 
secure our borders and protect our Nation from future terrorist 
attacks, we must also respect the need for refugees, foreign workers, 
family members, students, businesspeople, visitors, and others who wish 
to come to our Nation legally.
  The REAL ID Act is a big step in the wrong direction. The new 
restrictions on immigration in the REAL ID Act are not necessary to 
protect national security. Rather, they will only serve to create 
serious and unjustified hardships for people fleeing persecution and 
for other non-citizens.
  Not only that, but the Senate has had no opportunity to consider the 
REAL ID Act. It is astounding that Congress would enact these 
significant immigration changes without the United States Senate ever 
having held a hearing on them, without the Judiciary Committee ever 
having considered them, and without Senators ever having taken a vote 
specifically on those reforms or having had an opportunity to offer 
amendments. Obviously these issues are too important to address them in 
such a truncated way. Congressional leaders have no business tacking 
these very significant and controversial changes to immigration law 
onto an unrelated, must-pass appropriations bill. Clearly, this process 
was used because these changes could not pass the Senate on their own 
merit. They had to be added to legislation that contains vital funding 
for our troops in Iraq.
  What has happened to the legislative process? I know that some in the 
other body, and some in the Senate as well, have very strong feelings 
about these immigration provisions. But strong feelings do not justify 
abusing the power of the majority and the legislative process in this 
way. I strongly object to this tactic.
  Let me explain a few of my concerns with the REAL ID Act. First, this 
conference report will make it even harder for those fleeing 
persecution to seek asylum in this country. These changes to asylum law 
are simply unnecessary. As any attorney who handles asylum cases can 
tell you, asylum cases are already extremely difficult to prove. In 
fact, only about 30 percent of asylum applications are granted today. 
Those seeking asylum in the United States already undergo the highest 
level of security checks of all foreign nationals who enter this 
country, and the provisions in this bill will result, I am sure, in the 
rejection of legitimate applications without making us any safer.
  The asylum provisions of the REAL ID Act were improved somewhat in 
conference, and I greatly appreciate the work Senator Brownback did to 
make changes to the House-passed version. But the changes do not go far 
enough to adequately protect asylum seekers. This bill will have real 
effects on real people--people who will be sent back to countries where 
they or their families may be harmed or even killed because of their 
political or religious beliefs.
  There are also provisions in this bill that would further restrict 
judicial review in immigration proceedings. This is not the time to 
downgrade the judicial branch's longstanding role as a check on the 
abuse of executive branch power, particularly in light of some of the 
administration's unprecedented actions since September 11, 2001. Non-
citizens have borne the burden of many of the administration's 
egregious civil liberties violations that have occurred since September 
11. I believe that we can fight terrorism without compromising our 
civil liberties. Making it harder for non-citizens to seek judicial

[[Page 9011]]

review in immigration proceedings is sending exactly the wrong message 
about the need to respect the Constitution and basic human rights.
  The REAL ID provisions in the conference report also have potentially 
serious environmental implications. One section of the conference 
report allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to waive all laws that 
he deems necessary to allow expeditious construction of barriers at the 
border. Let me repeat that: The Secretary can waive any and all laws 
that he wishes in order to construct these barriers. I guess that could 
include labor and safety laws, but certainly it means that 
environmental regulations can be waived, at the sole discretion of the 
Secretary.
  I also want to address the driver's license title of the conference 
report. This title of the REAL ID Act is particularly unfortunate 
because it repeals provisions of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism 
Prevention Act, which we just passed a few months ago, and replaces 
them with the unworkable mandates that Congress rejected when debating 
the intelligence reform legislation. The intelligence reform bill 
required a negotiated rulemaking process to develop minimum 
identification standards, a process that is already under way and has 
included State governments, the Departments of Homeland Security and 
Transportation, law enforcement, industry representatives, privacy 
advocates, and immigration groups.
  They all had a seat at the table under the intelligence reform bill. 
In fact, they met for 3 full days just a few weeks ago. This process 
would have, in all likelihood, resulted in sensible, realistic 
standards for driver's licenses to improve security.
  Instead, the REAL ID Act mandates a long list of expensive and 
inflexible requirements for the states, some of which could have 
serious unintended consequences.
  Let me give you an example that demonstrates why we should not be 
rushing these provisions into law. A variety of States, either by law 
or policy, have address confidentiality programs that permit law 
enforcement officers, judges, or domestic violence victims to list 
something other than their home address on the face of their driver's 
license. They are required to provide their home address to the DMV, 
but it is not actually printed on the license. This is an important 
security measure to protect public officials and victims of violence 
from individuals who wish to do them harm.
  The REAL ID Act would override these protections by mandating that a 
person's home address be printed on the face of the driver's license 
itself. Had the Senate Judiciary Committee had an opportunity to review 
this bill, I feel confident we could have addressed this issue in a 
more nuanced way, and certainly the process now underway that this bill 
will short-circuit would have taken into account the legitimate public 
safety interest allowing some people to not list their actual 
addresses.
  The intelligence reform bill struck the right balance by setting up a 
mechanism to help improve the security of State identification cards, 
while also ensuring that States and other interested parties would have 
input into the process of determining minimum identification standards. 
I am very disappointed that the REAL ID Act is overriding this ongoing 
process with costly and unrealistic requirements that leave States with 
little discretion.
  On top of all this, the REAL ID Act prohibits the issuance of State 
driver's licenses to undocumented aliens. States should be the ones to 
decide whether, in the interests of public safety, they wish to issue 
driver's licenses to undocumented aliens. The reality is, there are 
millions of undocumented workers in the Nation. States could reasonably 
decide, just as Wisconsin has, that from a law enforcement and public 
safety perspective it is better to ensure that these individuals have 
been tested on their driving skills, have obtained insurance, and are 
readily identifiable, rather than to force them to drive illegally.
  While I am extremely concerned about the effects these REAL ID 
provisions are going to have on noncitizens and on already cash-
strapped State governments, I do want to note one bright stop in the 
immigration landscape of this bill. That is the provision that 
addresses the shortage of H-2B visas for temporary, seasonal workers. 
The cap for H-2B visas was reached just 3 months into the 2005 fiscal 
year, in January, which meant that employers in Northern States, such 
as Wisconsin whose tourism, landscaping, and other seasonal industries 
get started later in the year, have been unable to hire workers using 
H-2B visas.
  Senator Mikulski and Senator Gregg worked tirelessly to ensure that 
this provision was enacted into law in time to help employers who need 
workers this year, and I do commend them for their efforts. I have been 
proud to cosponsor their H-2B legislation, and I am very pleased this 
is about to become law. Unlike the REAL ID bill, this provision had 
overwhelming bipartisan support in the Senate and quick congressional 
action was definitely needed.
  Mr. President, I will vote for this legislation because our Armed 
Forces need the funds it provides, but I strongly object to the 
inclusion of the REAL ID Act in the conference report. Those who 
support these provisions have prevailed only because they were willing 
to upend the legislative process to achieve their ends. I certainly 
regret that, and I think many of us will come to regret that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. Mr. President, I rise today to briefly discuss the 
conference report to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, 
which we hope to adopt later today.
  First, I thank my colleague from Mississippi, Senator Cochran, for 
the good work he has done. I plan to support adoption of this 
conference report. There are certainly a number of programs that will 
benefit greatly from passage of this bill. It is the right thing to do.
  I must say, though, there are a few areas, which I will discuss in a 
moment, where I do not think we have gone quite far enough.
  First, let's talk about the most important thing. Of course, that is 
the money that will go to support our soldiers. That is really why we 
are here. That is the most important provision in the bill. Let me talk 
about a couple of specific items that will aid our soldiers.
  This bill includes Senator Craig's amendment, which I cosponsored, to 
provide an immediate payment--it ranges from $25,000 to $100,000--to 
those who have suffered traumatic injuries on active duty, such as the 
loss of an arm or leg or the loss of their hearing or sight.
  The bill also includes my second-degree amendment to Senator Craig's 
amendment making this provision retroactive to October 7, 2001. This 
second-degree amendment I offered will ensure the coverage of soldiers 
who have been injured in Iraq, injured in Afghanistan, those soldiers 
who many of us have seen or talked to who are currently recuperating at 
Walter Reed, Bethesda, or other hospitals around our Nation, as well as 
those who have left the hospital and are learning to live with their 
injuries.
  This amendment would help service members, such as Army SSG Justin 
Shellhammer, whom I spoke to today on the phone. Justin Shellhammer is 
a courageous young man, someone of whom we can all be very proud. I 
talked to him on the phone this morning. He is excited he is going to 
get a leg this afternoon. He told me about how his recuperation has 
been coming along and what his prospects are. When you talk to someone 
like him, your heart goes out to him. But, frankly, you feel great 
admiration for him and how courageous he is.
  I am also pleased this bill includes an additional $150 million for 
the procurement of up-armored humvees. Many of us on the Senate floor 
and in the House have supported, for a long period of time, increases 
in funding for this program. It is an important program. There is a 
critical need for these vehicles in Iraq and Afghanistan and here in 
the United States where they are used for training.

[[Page 9012]]

  Quite simply, these vehicles have saved the lives of hundreds if not 
thousands of service men and women and enabled them to complete their 
mission.
  Just a few moments ago, I talked about the fact that there are some 
items that should have been included in the bill that are not. I am, 
frankly, a little disappointed.
  The conference report does not provide the death gratuity increase 
that we provided to all Active-Duty deaths. This bill increases the 
death gratuity to $100,000--and that is a very good thing--to the 
families of those who have died in service to our country. But the 
language in the bill that came out of conference provides only for 
deaths that occur in a combat zone or those that are ``combat-
related.'' I think that is much too narrow. I think it is a shame. I 
think it is too bad that is what the conference did.
  If we do not apply the death gratuity increase to all Active-Duty 
deaths--which is what we should have done--we will not be covering a 
number of individuals who die while carrying out their orders, who die 
in service to our country. Their families will not be covered. For 
example, we will not cover the family of a service member who gets into 
a fatal car accident carrying out very specific orders to deliver files 
from one side of his home base to another, in service to his country. 
His family will not get that death benefit.
  We also will not cover the death of a service member who gets into a 
fatal accident en route to a conference he or she was ordered to 
attend. And it will not even cover a military police officer guarding 
the gates of one of our domestic bases who may fall from heat stroke. I 
do not think that is right. I think that was a mistake the conference 
made.
  As I have done since the beginning of this Congress, I will continue, 
as I know others will, to work to expand the applicability of this 
critical benefit.
  I must say, I was also disappointed that we were unable to pass an 
extended TRICARE Prime medical benefit for children of decreased 
service members. Under current law, the dependent child of a deceased 
service member receives medical benefits under TRICARE Prime for 3 
years at no cost. But following that period, the dependent children may 
continue to receive TRICARE Prime, but they must pay for that benefit 
at the retiree dependent premium rate, available to children under the 
age of 21 or 23 if they are enrolled in school. Also, after 3 years, 
when a dependent child's military parent dies, and if that family 
elects to pay the premium and stay enrolled, even if they pay that 
premium, that child would move down on the food chain, so to speak, in 
terms of the availability of services and priority. I do not think that 
is right. I think we need to correct that.
  What that means is that if there is a doctor's appointment opening, 
and your parent is alive, and your parent is continuing to serve, you 
get preference over a child whose parent was killed in Iraq or 
Afghanistan. Now, do we really think that is right? I do not think so. 
I do not think there is any person on this floor or in the Senate who 
would say that is right.
  This is simply not fair. I don't think any Member of the Senate who 
really understands this would say that is right. My amendment, which 
was not included in this bill, would have changed that by putting 
surviving children of service members killed in service in the same 
position--no better but no worse--as if their parent would have lived 
and continued to serve in the military. It would have put them in no 
better position but, rather, in the same position, and they would 
continue to receive TRICARE Prime at no cost until they became an 
adult.
  I wish to let my colleagues know that I plan to continue this debate 
and to try to get this in the Defense authorization bill. This is a 
matter of simple fairness. It is the right thing to do. So this 
discussion will continue this week and in the weeks ahead.
  Let me turn to another topic that this bill addresses, and that is 
humanitarian assistance. I believe we did a pretty good job in this 
bill--again, I congratulate the chairman--as many essential priorities 
were funded. Because of what the chairman did and what others did, many 
people will be fed, many people will be helped maybe not at the level I 
would have liked in some cases, but we did a pretty good job.
  One country that certainly needs assistance in this supplemental is 
Haiti. Haiti is embarking on a road to attempt to move toward 
democracy. They have had a very troubled past, a troubled present. Its 
current history is troubled. They are facing elections this year.
  I thank Chairman Cochran and Senator Bingaman, Chairman McConnell, 
and all the conferees who supported my efforts to include emergency 
money for Haiti. Haiti needs election assistance and security. This 
bill provides $20 million for election assistance this year, for police 
training and for public works programs. All this money is urgently 
needed. I will be working closely with the U.S. Agency for 
International Development to ensure this money flows quickly into 
Haiti.
  Another troubled spot in this world is Darfur. Again, I congratulate 
the chairman for his work. Senator Corzine offered an amendment. 
Senator Corzine has been a true champion in this area. I congratulate 
him. He offered an amendment, of which I was the lead cosponsor, 
regarding Darfur. I thank him for his efforts and commitment to helping 
end the crisis in the region. The final conference report provides $50 
million to support the African Union to stop the genocide in Darfur. 
Again, I thank Senator McConnell and Senator Leahy for their good work 
in this area as well.
  The conference report also provides an additional $90 million for 
international disaster and family assistance to help ensure 
humanitarian aid flows to Darfur and other African crises. We are 
looking at genocide in Darfur. We are staring it down, and we cannot 
afford to blink. It is only right that this bill contains funding for 
this crisis.
  Finally, I thank Senator Kohl for his efforts to help increase our 
U.S. food aid. I worked with Senator Kohl. I was his lead cosponsor on 
his amendment, which the Senate passed, to include $470 million in food 
aid to cover known worldwide aid shortages. Again, I thank Senator 
Cochran for his good work in this area.
  The conference report, unfortunately, contains only $240 million. 
This money will help, but it is not at the level the Senate had 
provided. This is not enough to cover existing shortfalls, much less 
new emergencies or worsening conditions in places such as Ethiopia. 
Last year, 300,000 children in Ethiopia died of malnutrition. This 
year, the situation is worse, with drought destroying crops in large 
parts of the country. The people of Ethiopia will avoid the starvation 
that is on the horizon only if we act. That means remaining open to the 
possibility of using the Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust and other 
tools in our food aid arsenal. We must understand that it is not only 
Ethiopia where we have a crisis; we have crises all over the world with 
regard to food aid. We simply do not have enough food.
  I am proud to be joining Senator Kohl in sending a letter to the 
President asking him to look at the Bill Emerson Trust as we enter the 
summer season that so often results in food shortages, not just in 
Ethiopia but around the world. I again commend Senator Kohl for his 
commitment to end hunger around the world.
  There are good parts to the conference report we are passing today. 
It provides immediate and necessary help that our soldiers need to do 
their job. It provides our injured service men and women with care that 
they desperately need. It provides money for Haiti and Darfur, other 
African crises. However, frankly, we could have done more. Legislation, 
though, is never perfect. We simply need to continue to work together 
to address issues that are not fixed in this legislation.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, it is my understanding that under the 
previous

[[Page 9013]]

order, I will be recognized for up to 1 hour.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct, of which 10 minutes will be 
yielded to the Senator from Washington.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from 
Washington, Mrs. Murray.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the supplemental 
appropriations bill we are considering which funds our military 
activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Overall, I support this bill. We do 
need to get the money out to our troops. But I am here today because I 
have several concerns about what it leaves out and how it was put 
together.
  I have to say I am particularly troubled that I and other Senators 
were denied a promised opportunity to debate and vote on some very 
controversial immigration changes that have been attached to this bill.
  First, let me say, I know how important the funding is to our troops 
overseas. In March, I traveled with the Senator from Illinois and 
several others on a bipartisan trip to Iraq and met with troops from 
the State of Washington. To a person, each of them was a dedicated 
professional who was putting duty above their personal well-being. They 
need our support, and they deserve every resource our grateful Nation 
can provide.
  As I have said before, I am the daughter of a disabled World War II 
veteran. I represent hundreds of thousands of Washington State veterans 
and military families. I support every dollar in this aid bill to help 
our troops protect themselves and complete successfully the dangerous 
mission we have assigned them. But I am concerned that when all of 
these new veterans come home and need medical care, they are going to 
be pushed into a VA system that does not have medical staff, 
facilities, or the funding needed to care for them. That is exactly why 
I was on the Senate floor fighting to include within the supplemental 
the critical cost of war, and that is taking care of our Nation's 
veterans.
  I am disappointed that Republicans in the Senate have decided that 
funding for veterans care is not an emergency and not a priority. By 
denying that there is a crisis at the VA, they are simply ignoring our 
responsibility to fully provide for the men and women who are risking 
their lives for our freedom. Our veterans, our military, and our future 
recruits deserve better. Taking care of our veterans is part of the 
cost of having a great military. It is a real disservice that we have 
not taken care of that funding within this bill.
  I am here today because I am also very troubled by how far-reaching 
and unrelated immigration rules got attached to this bill without a 
vote and without an opportunity to debate. The REAL ID provision has 
ramifications for privacy, for States rights, and for immigration 
policy. I am disappointed that it has been rammed through as an 
attachment to a desperately needed bill that funds our troops. Frankly, 
a lot of us are kind of scratching our heads about how this REAL ID 
provision ended up in this conference report. I know I didn't vote for 
it. I know there wasn't even a discussion of it in conference, but 
somehow it is included in a must-pass bill.
  Mr. President, I served on the conference committee, and I want to 
share with my colleagues exactly what happened in that conference 
committee so they will understand why the sudden appearance of the REAL 
ID provision is so surprising to many of us.
  When the conference committee met, the chairman gave assurances to 
the minority that we would be able to vote on several provisions when 
the conference met again. But that conference never met again, leaving 
no opportunity for the minority party to vote, much less to strike 
these provisions.
  I want to share with the Senate the specifics. In our second meeting 
of the conference committee, Senator Durbin, who is now on the Senate 
floor, asked Chairman Cochran for his assurance that we would get a 
chance to vote on these immigration changes, and other open items as 
well, before the supplemental was sent to the floor.
  In fact, I want to read a portion of the transcript of that meeting. 
This discussion took place on Thursday, April 28.
  Senator Durbin said:

       I would also like to say to my colleagues, if this bill 
     contains--as I believe it does--the REAL ID Act, I would like 
     a vote on that so that we can be on the record on an issue 
     that has never been brought before committee in the Senate.
       My question to you is this, Mr. Chairman: There have been 
     times when conference committees of this magnitude have 
     recessed and never been heard from again. The next thing we 
     find is a conference committee report on the floor on a take 
     it or leave it basis.
       Can we have your assurance that we will return for votes on 
     amendments such as those we have debated today and those that 
     I have mentioned?

  Senator Cochran's response to Senator Durbin:

       Senator, I would be glad to make the assurance that if 
     there is work to be done, if there are open items to be 
     considered, that we can consider those in conference. I am 
     not prepared to make a commitment as to when that will be. I 
     don't want to lead you to believe that I am going to 
     surreptitiously or in secret reach an agreement on the other 
     side without consulting all the conferees on the Senate side.
       I think everyone in this conference has a right to 
     participate in this discussion and I wouldn't want to cut off 
     anybody's right to participate.

  Mr. President, I have worked closely with Senator Cochran for many 
years, and I do know him to be a man of his word. But to me, what that 
exchange meant, sitting there in that conference, was that we would 
have an opportunity to vote on the REAL ID provision, but that never 
happened. To me, that was wrong.
  The REAL ID provision will have dramatic and far-reaching changes and 
puts an unfunded mandate on many States. Yet it was never brought 
before a Senate committee, and it was never voted on in the conference.
  That is exactly why I did not sign the final conference report, which 
is very unusual for me. I did not sign it because I believe the process 
was flawed and we were denied an opportunity to debate and discuss 
these immigration changes before they were brought to the floor as part 
of a must-pass bill.
  Mr. President, we are all very concerned about security, but this 
received very little debate. Before Congress mandates these kinds of 
changes, we should have a more informed debate. In fact, it begs the 
question, why was this added to a must-pass bill without a debate? 
Probably because it could not withstand a rigorous and open public 
debate. We should have that, and I am disappointed that the majority 
denied us that opportunity.
  I also want to note today the irony that the Senate is about to allow 
a technical fix to immigration-related language that was included in 
the supplemental, which I agree needs to be fixed; but the Democrats in 
the conference committee were not provided any opportunity to fix any 
other immigration provision.
  I want to reiterate my frustration with how the REAL ID Act was 
included and that we were not given the same consideration regarding 
that language.
  Mr. President, the REAL ID provision has some unique impacts for my 
home State. This section on immigration is particularly troubling to me 
because Washington State has proactively enacted several laws to 
protect the privacy of Washington State residents.
  While I understand the needs for increased security, I don't think 
Washington State laws should be completely overridden by this 
provision, especially without ever having had the chance for debate and 
discussion on it.
  We know this bill is going to pass. Our troops need the funding it 
includes. I am already working with communities and officials across 
Washington State to help find a way to implement these new 
requirements. I will continue, once this is passed, to push the 
administration to now provide the funding necessary to make these 
changes without piling new burdens onto our already cash-strapped 
State.
  Mr. President, it is really unfortunate that at a time when we should 
be focusing on the needs of our troops and

[[Page 9014]]

our veterans, the majority party is using the supplemental aid bill as 
a vehicle to legislate on subjects that have not received the debate 
and attention they deserve. But at the end of the day, we know we 
cannot afford to fail in our missions abroad. With hundreds of 
thousands of troops sacrificing every day in Iraq and Afghanistan, I 
will support this supplemental bill, and I will continue to work to 
fight for their care as they return home.
  I thank my colleague from Illinois for yielding me time and allowing 
me to express my frustration on how this part of the bill was put in 
without anybody able to discuss it in conference committee.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip is recognized.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for her statement with 
which I agree. This is called an emergency supplemental. It is the 
nature of an emergency supplemental that it funds things that were 
unanticipated, such as natural disasters and military operations that 
we didn't anticipate. That is the nature of an emergency supplemental. 
Yet, when you look at it, at the real nature of this bill, there is no 
emergency or unexpected element here. This is funding the third year of 
a war in Iraq.
  Did we expect to be gone from Iraq by this time? I don't think 
anybody suggested that. Yet the administration continues to bring the 
funding of our troops into the Congress on an emergency basis. Why 
would they do that? Why would they not put it through the ordinary 
appropriations process? There are two good reasons. First, it isn't 
added to the national debt each year. The President can say, when he 
presents his budget, that we are close to being in balance. In fact, we 
are not even close. We have the largest deficit in the history of the 
United States of America under the Bush administration. You have to add 
this to it. This is a real cost to the American taxpayers, to our 
Government. But by putting it in separately, it is a little sleight of 
hand, so that you don't add the $81 billion to the actual cost.
  Secondly, if this went through the ordinary appropriations process, 
there would be hearings and questions would be raised--questions I 
would like to raise after I visited Iraq with the Senator from 
Washington. Why, in a third year of the war, are we still trying to 
find armor plating for humvees and trucks to protect our troops? Why, 
in the third year of the war, after giving every dollar the 
administration asked for, don't we have protective body armor for all 
of our soldiers? Why, in the third year of the war, don't we have the 
most modern helmets and firearms that our troops need to be safe, to 
perform their mission and come home?
  Hard questions. I might also like to ask a few questions about some 
of the major contractors who are being paid for this war. Millions, if 
not billions, of dollars are going to companies on no-bid contracts. 
You know the names. Halliburton leads the list. I will tell you this. 
It is considered entirely inappropriate in Congress to raise the 
question about whether Halliburton has been paid too much or 
improperly. You just don't ask those questions around here. Those are 
things which Congress has no business asking about, according to the 
Republican majority. Those are questions that would be asked if this 
appropriations bid went through the regular process.
  Instead, it comes to us as an emergency. We don't have time to talk 
about it or to ask any questions. They say: Come on now, the troops are 
at risk. Let's pass the bill and get it over with.
  That is what we face every year. The majority knows that even those 
of us who voted against the use of force resolution for the invasion of 
Iraq have said we are going to vote for the money for the troops. If it 
were my son or daughter, my brother, or someone in my family whose life 
is at risk in Iraq, whether I agree with the way we went into the war 
is irrelevant. I am going to give those soldiers, marines, and our 
other Armed Forces every penny they need to perform their mission and 
come home safely. We can debate the policy and whether we are going to 
make the mistake we made in Vietnam, where our policy debate turned 
into a debate at the expense of our troops. And so the administration 
and the Republican majority take advantage of it. They pushed this bill 
through on a take-it-or-leave-it emergency basis, and they say do not 
ask any hard questions. We do not want to talk about armor for humvees. 
We do not want to talk about Halliburton. Take it or leave it.
  That is sad. Yet in their hurry to bring this bill to the floor, they 
load it up with things that are not related to the war in Iraq. We 
heard what the Senator from Washington said. There is a major change in 
the law in this bill about the issuance of driver's licenses in the 
United States of America. Why in the world is that in this bill, the 
emergency bill for the troops? I think she has made it clear.
  Let me give a little background. If we were fair, we would not call 
this the emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year 
ending September 30; we would call this the Larry Lindsey memorial 
bill. Why? Because Larry Lindsey happened to be the Budget Director 
under President Bush who made a big mistake. When we invaded Iraq, Mr. 
Lindsey predicted the war would cost somewhere between $100 billion and 
$200 billion. Mr. Lindsey was dismissed from his job as a result of 
suggesting the war might cost that much money.
  And remember Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz? They asked him: 
How will we pay for the war in Iraq? He assured us in open testimony 
that Iraqi oil money would pay for the reconstruction, and at one 
remarkable Senate hearing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even 
predicted Iraqi tourism dollars would help finance the new Iraq.
  Fast forward to today. With the Senate's passage this week of this 
bill, American taxpayers would have committed nearly $300 billion for 
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are still waiting for that tourism 
money, we are still waiting for that Iraqi oil money, and Mr. Lindsey 
is now in civilian life for suggesting the war might cost a third of 
what it has actually cost.
  That is the reality, and there is no end in sight. We are not going 
to delay passage of this bill; there is too much at stake. Mr. 
President, 150,000 American soldiers rely on our prompt action on this 
bill, and it will pass here today, as it should.
  Let me speak about some elements of this bill I think should be part 
of the record. Democrats are going to support this bill not only 
because it helps the troops, because it does fund some true 
emergencies. There is $900 million in emergency relief for the victims 
of the South Asia tsunami, one of the greatest natural disasters in 
modern memory, and $400 million for humanitarian assistance in the 
Darfur region of Sudan. If this genocide in Darfur is not an emergency, 
what is? Unfortunately, what is missing from Darfur accountability 
passed by the Senate is seeking justice and security for the victims of 
this campaign of murder, rape, and destruction.
  I am also going to vote for this bill because it does include a 
provision which I added on the Senate floor reaffirming America's 
commitment to not engage in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, 
or degrading treatment of prisoners of war or other detainees. I 
believe reaffirming this longstanding American commitment to this 
fundamental standard of international law and decency will help restore 
our credibility and our moral standing in a world which questions what 
happened at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. As many military experts have 
told us, it will also reduce the chance that American military 
personnel, when captured, would be tortured.
  The bill contains $5.7 billion to train Iraqi troops. Six or 7 weeks 
ago when I was in Baghdad, they showed us a handful, a dozen of these 
troops who were in an exercise. I am not a military expert. I do not 
know if they were real soldiers. I do not know if they were really 
trained, but thank goodness there is some effort underway to try to 
replace American soldiers with Iraqi soldiers.

[[Page 9015]]

  It also contains crucial requirements that progress and training be 
monitored and measured, language Senator Kennedy, Senator Levin, 
Senator Byrd, and I worked hard to preserve. It is not enough for high-
ranking administration officials to assure us that 130,000 Iraqi troops 
have been trained when only a small fraction are actually ready to 
fight, or when tens of thousands of U.S.-trained Iraqi police officers 
have gone AWOL. We cannot find them. Knowing how many Iraqi troops are 
ready to defend the nation will give us a better idea of when we can 
bring our troops home, and the sooner the better.
  I thank the chairman and ranking member for working with us on the 
troop training and torture amendments, some of the reasons I will vote 
for this bill.
  The final conference report does include other issues that trouble me 
when it comes to our troops. I have been trying for almost 3 years to 
make certain that Federal Government employees who are members of the 
Guard and Reserve and who are activated to serve overseas do not find 
themselves facing extraordinary financial hardships. In the Pentagon, 
we go to businesses across America and say: If you want to be a 
patriotic business, if you want to show your love of America, show your 
love for the men in the Guard and Reserve, and the women as well, and 
if they are activated, help their families; cover them with health 
insurance, if you can; make up the difference in pay, if you can. And 
many of them have stepped forward and said: We are going to do it. In 
fact, almost 1,000 different corporations and units of government--
State and local--have said we are going to stand behind those Guard and 
Reserve families. They are making enough of a sacrifice, they are 
putting their lives on the line, and we will stand behind the families 
who stay home so that soldier, worried about his life, does not have to 
worry about the mortgage payment. We even have a Web site sponsored by 
our Federal Government saluting these great companies for standing 
behind our Guard and Reserve, as we should.
  But let me let you in on a secret. There is one major employer in 
America that refuses to stand behind the Guard and Reserve. There is 
one major employer that employs 10 percent of the Guard and Reserve in 
America, 1 out of 10, that refuses to make up the difference in pay. 
Who could that employer be? It is the U.S. Government.
  The Federal Government refuses to make up the difference in pay for 
these soldiers and marines in our country. How can we possibly explain 
that? We are praising companies and other governments that stand behind 
their people while we fail to do the same.
  So on three different occasions, I offered an amendment on the floor, 
and it was adopted, which said we will stand behind the Guard and 
Reserve. We will make up the difference in pay, just as other companies 
do. Take a look at the companies that have done their patriotic duty. 
They are big names: Sears and Roebuck, out of my State of Illinois, 
IBM, General Motors, United Parcel Service, Ford, 24 State governments. 
But not the U.S. Federal Government. And, Mr. President, do you know 
what the problem is? Every time we pass it on the floor, so many 
Members race up here to vote for it, saying: Oh, we are all for the men 
and women in uniform; God bless them; give me a flag to wave; we are 
all with them. And then as soon as it gets in conference committee, 
they strip it. Year after year they take out this protection for 
Federal employees who are literally risking their lives today in the 
Guard and Reserve.
  According to a recent survey made by the Defense Department, 51 
percent of the Guard and Reserve members suffer a loss of income during 
long periods of active duty. Three-quarters of Guard and Reserve 
members surveyed cited income as one of the major reasons they were 
leaving the service. We know recruiting is down, retention is under 
pressure, and yet we refuse to make up the difference in pay for 1 of 
every 10 Guard and Reserve.
  Today, 17,000 Federal employees are activated. To date, 36,000 have 
been activated and deactivated. So large numbers of men and women are 
affected by this amendment. And in the darkness of the conference, 
after the doors are closed, when the press has left, when nobody is 
watching, they take out this protection for Federal employees.
  The lead sponsors of this provision are going to continue the effort 
with me. Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, and Senator George 
Allen, a Republican from Virginia, have joined me. Our measure is 
endorsed by the Reserve Officers Association, the Enlisted Association 
of the National Guard, and the National Guard Association of the United 
States.
  The Congressional Budget Office and the Budget Committee staff 
studied our plan. They agree it would not add $1 to the budget because 
the cost of the affected workers' salaries is already included in the 
budget.
  The last time the conferees met, I asked the chairman, Senator 
Cochran, for his assurance that the Republicans would not do what they 
have done in the past and kill this amendment without giving us a 
chance for an up-or-down vote in front of God and the world. I was 
given that assurance, but sadly it did not happen.
  The conference committee recessed and disappeared and, unfortunately, 
we never had a chance to have an open vote on whether we would stand 
behind these Guard and Reserve members. That is unfortunate. I had 
hoped the assurance by the chairman would mean we would get that vote. 
It did not happen.
  It appears the White House overrode anyone's intent to bring this 
measure up for consideration. Josh Bolton, the Director of the Office 
of Management and Budget, released a letter saying the White House 
opposed our reservist pay amendment because it would ``increase costs 
and have a negative impact on morale and unit cohesion.''
  Think about that. The argument is that the soldiers under fire 
worrying from day to day whether they will be alive would compare pay 
stubs and have a general conversation about how much money are you 
getting from your employer, how much are you receiving, as if they 
would care. Those units go into battle together to protect their lives. 
I do not think they resented that one soldier in that unit had help 
because he happened to be an employee of Sears, another soldier because 
he happened to be an employee of one of the 23 State and local 
governments. They are not going to hold that against their fellow 
soldiers. That is going to undermine morale? They have to say: You are 
lucky; I happen to work for the Federal Government, and I get no help. 
I come here and risk my life, and this amendment is defeated in the 
darkness of a conference committee every single year.
  That argument is just nonsense.
  What message are we sending to conscientious employers? 
Unfortunately, the wrong message: Do as we say, not as we do. Listen to 
the Federal Government, listen to the Members of Congress with all 
their patriotic speeches, and then watch as we deep-six this provision 
year after year. It is an unfortunate message to some of the best men 
and women in America who risk their lives for our freedom.
  We also wanted to push for more veterans health services. Senator 
Murray of Washington offered a $2 billion amendment, and she said if 
the war is an emergency, treatment of the veterans of the war should be 
an emergency. We know that is true. We know these veterans come home 
with real needs.
  I had hearings across my State on posttraumatic stress disorder. I 
have been around this business for a long time. I have never, ever 
witnessed what I did then. We had men and women coming in who had 
served in Iraq and returned, young men and women who risked their lives 
wearing the uniform of America. They are home now, but the war is still 
on their mind. For many of them, it is a destructive memory, things 
they saw and things they did which they cannot get out of their minds. 
They come back and finally realize they need a helping hand. They are 
estranged from their families. Their spouses are saying: That is not 
the same soldier who I sent over there. What happened to him?

[[Page 9016]]

  They find themselves despondent, angry, unable to cope with ordinary 
life, turning on members of their family in anger, and they need help. 
Sadly, too many of them need help they cannot find at the veterans 
hospitals. So if we promise these men and women when they serve our 
country that we will stand behind them, should not the Veterans' 
Administration, the hospitals and clinics, be ready to stand behind 
them, when they come home, for their injuries, for this posttraumatic 
stress disorder? Is it too much to ask that we have family therapists 
who will work with spouses and children who have seen a different 
father or a different mother come home? I believe it is only 
reasonable.
  Senator Murray led the way. She asked for $2 billion to be put in as 
an emergency for veterans hospitals and clinics. It was turned down on 
the Senate floor.
  I am glad that the death gratuity is increased. Twelve thousand 
dollars for your life in service of your country? I am glad we have 
raised that to $100,000 tax free for spouses and children of those who 
die in service. It also increases from $250,000 to $400,000 the life 
insurance benefits that are available. There is one catch. In the 
Senate, we voted to increase these benefits for the families of all 
Active-Duty service members, but behind the closed doors of this 
conference committee which met in private and in secret, the 
Republicans changed the rules. They decided on their own, without a 
vote, without a discussion, to restrict the new death benefits and the 
new life insurance benefits only to families of service members who die 
in a combat zone. That simple geographical distinction, ``in a combat 
zone,'' could disqualify about half of all families who have lost a 
loved one serving on active duty since the start of the war in 
Afghanistan. These families will not be eligible for the new benefits 
because the husbands and fathers, wives and mothers died outside of 
what is technically classified a combat zone. That is arbitrary, that 
is wrong, it is unfair. Whether a soldier dies in Iraq or training to 
go to Iraq, his sacrifice is equally great, the loss to his family 
equally devastating, and our Government owes an equal debt to his wife 
and children.
  We have had testimony from those uniformed officials who appear 
before the Armed Services Committee and we ask them about this. Admiral 
John Nathman, Vice Chief of Naval Operations for the Navy, said: ``They 
can't make that distinction. I don't think we should, either,'' in 
terms of who is dying in a combat zone and who is not.
  General T. Michael Moseley, Air Force Vice Chief, said:

       I believe a death is a death, and I believe this should be 
     treated that way. . . .

  Sadly, these people were not listened to and, unfortunately, this 
bill does not provide the protection which our soldiers truly need and 
deserve.
  Senator DeWine and I, on a bipartisan basis, are lead sponsors of a 
bill to change that benefit and to make it fair. I certainly hope we 
can.
  This bill also shortchanges our first front-line troops at home, the 
first responders. All across America, police, fire departments, and EMT 
squads are stretched thin. Many lack equipment. Many of them are not 
getting the HAZMAT and other specialized training they need. This bill 
does not contain one dollar, not one dime for first responders.
  We have so few Border Patrol agents that vigilante groups such as the 
armed Minutemen have decided to take it upon themselves to patrol the 
borders of the United States. Yet this bill contains funds to hire only 
500 new Border Patrol agents--not enough to do the job. New York City 
has 40,000 police officers. We have 10,000 border agents to secure the 
entire U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican borders, even with the new agents 
in this bill. The Republicans have argued we can afford to give a 
$35,000 tax break to a person who is earning over $1 million a year, 
but we cannot afford to hire 500 Border Patrol agents. Their priorities 
speak for themselves. Homeland security is not a job for armed 
volunteers; it is a job for professionals, and it ought to be a 
priority for this Congress.
  Now let me speak for a moment to this REAL ID bill. This is a serious 
problem. If one is going to use a driver's license to prove their 
identity, wherever it may be--stopped by a highway patrolman or getting 
on an airplane--we need to make sure that driver's license is 
authentic.
  We have 50 States with different standards for establishing one's 
identity. It is a serious problem, serious enough that when the 9/11 
Commission report came out and we put together a bipartisan bill to 
respond to it, we included a provision in that bill that required the 
Federal Government and State governments to work together to come up 
with realistic, operable standards to prove identity for those who were 
applying for driver's licenses. We passed that bill overwhelmingly on a 
bipartisan basis. I was happy to be one of the cosponsors of that 
legislation and glad that the President signed it. Then Members of the 
House said: We do not agree with that cooperative process. We want to 
establish the standards on our own. We want to write them into law. And 
they created something called the REAL ID Act.
  We did not have public hearings on the REAL ID Act. We did not invite 
in the Governors. We did not invite the State motor vehicle agencies. 
We did not have a conversation about an honest and realistic way to 
approach it. We were given this on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
  The American people deserve to know what they can look forward to 
under this REAL ID Act, which is part of this emergency supplemental. 
Some say that it is just simply going to keep illegal immigrants from 
obtaining driver's licenses. If that were the case, it would be a much 
different and much smaller bill.
  Under this law, to get a driver's license in any State in America, 
one will need to present several pieces of identification. One has to 
provide a photo ID document or a non-photo document containing both the 
individual's full legal name and date of birth; and documentation of 
the individual's date of birth, Social Security number or the 
individual's non-eligibility for a Social Security number, and the name 
and address of the individual's principal residence.
  Now there is a catch to this. One has to come into that driver's 
license station with that proof. What is it going to be? Well, they at 
least need a birth certificate, that is for sure, or something like it. 
They are also going to need some proof of their Social Security number. 
They are also going to need some proof of their residence. Now when 
they bring those documents in for their driver's license, the State 
employee whom they face, who is issuing the driver's license, cannot 
just accept them at face value; they have to take the documents and 
verify them with the agency that issued them. Until they verify them, a 
person cannot receive a driver's license.
  Imagine if one is a naturalized American citizen who was born in the 
former Yugoslavia. You present your birth certificate to the clerk at 
the Department of Motor Vehicles. There are two big problems.
  How is that clerk in Springfield, IL, at secretary of state Jesse 
White's motor vehicle facility, going to verify the authenticity of 
documents issued by a government that no longer exists? Good question. 
I do not know the answer.
  There is another problem. The REAL ID Act says that the State cannot 
accept any foreign document other than an official passport. So, even 
if the clerk could verify the birth certificate, he cannot accept it.
  Imagine you are the person behind the counter.
  What are you going to do? With whom do you check? Whom do you call? 
And what do you do about the people standing in line waiting for their 
turn to put more documents on the desk?
  If you think a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles is a bad 
experience today, wait until the REAL ID takes effect. This is not 
necessarily going to make America any safer. It will make States 
poorer. The estimates are it will cost States about $500 million to 
$700 million, another unfunded mandate,

[[Page 9017]]

 and in return for this massive cost and inconvenience we will get, at 
best, marginal increases in security.
  The States have 3 years to put this in place and, incidentally, if we 
find States that don't have it in place in 3 years, an interesting 
thing happens. No one's driver's license from a State that hasn't been 
certified to be in compliance can be used for Federal identification. 
And if it turns out the State of Illinois, at the end of 3 years, still 
does not have this together, what is going to happen? It means myself, 
as a resident from Illinois, presenting a driver's license at the 
airport, will be turned away. Illinois licenses are not accepted. That 
is what this bill says--without 1 minute of hearing in the Senate, 
without 1 minute of debate on the floor of the Senate.
  This is an unworkable and unfunded mandate.
  In a conference committee, I said to the chairman: I think we need a 
vote on this. I think members ought to be asked to stand up and explain 
why they are going to support this without any hearing, without any 
deliberation. I want to debate it, and I would like to have an official 
vote so we know where the Members of the Senate and the House stand on 
this proposal.
  I believed that I had an assurance that I would receive it, but I 
didn't. Ultimately, the committee recessed. No votes were taken. It 
comes to us now as part of this funding for the troops on a take-it-or-
leave-it basis. That is not a good way to legislate.
  Let me also say I think this REAL ID is going to create hardships 
that are totally unnecessary. We can ascertain the identity, and we 
should, of the people applying for driver's licenses. But the way this 
was written is sadly not going to achieve that in the most efficient 
way. The REAL ID Act is another provision on which I wanted a vote, 
wanted a discussion, and wanted an open debate. Unfortunately, it did 
not occur.
  Many Democrats, despite this provision, will still support this bill 
because we have said from the start we are going to stand behind our 
troops. I think the administration, the Republican leadership in 
Congress, is testing us. How many things can they load into this bill 
to force us to vote for something we are troubled with, and that is 
what it is all about. We all know this is not the way to pay for a war 
and it is not the way for Congress to operate. The late Larry Lindsey--
I say ``late'' because he is no longer in public service--was fired for 
saying the war might cost $200 billion. Now we are up to $300 billion 
and counting. Sadly, too many of the important decisions on funding 
this war are still being made by one party behind closed doors.
  We will pass this bill, Democrats will support it, but this has to be 
the end of it. We need to fix this broken process. The American people 
deserve better.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois not only 
for the time but also for his eloquent statement about this 
legislation, and particularly the REAL ID bill.
  The emergency supplemental bill we are considering today provides 
needed funding for our men and women in uniform who are engaged in 
combat operations in Afghanistan and in Iraq, as well as emergency 
assistance to the victims of the tsunami. This aid and assistance 
cannot wait because it is a demonstration of our Nation's good will 
towards those who have been devastated by natural disaster, and also 
our commitment to our soldiers in combat. These noble goals are 
unfortunately tainted, however, by the decision of the Republican 
leadership to include a controversial piece of legislation known as the 
REAL ID Act.
  Senator Durbin has gone into great detail to show how unwieldy it is 
and perhaps how unnecessary it is. There are other ways to more 
effectively and efficiently verify the identity of individuals.
  Also, this kind of back-door legislating is symptomatic of the 
majority's near total disregard for the precedents and procedures of 
the Senate that have served our Nation so well and for so long. I hope 
the American people realize this maneuver is yet another example of the 
majority's desire to pass the most controversial legislation by sliding 
it into a bill which cannot be amended and is subject only to an up-or-
down vote.
  With no Senate debate, and very little review, the REAL ID Act makes 
significant and harmful changes to our Nation's immigration system, as 
well as our system of licensure of automobiles and drivers throughout 
the United States.
  Like many, I believe immigration is an issue we cannot and should not 
ignore. However, the REAL ID Act is not the comprehensive immigration 
reform that we have gone far too long without. Instead, it vastly 
alters our Nation's established asylum procedures, placing the burden 
of proof on the applicants by requiring them to document their torture 
or persecution. Potential asylum seekers are already thoroughly 
investigated, and those suspected of engaging in terrorist activities 
are already prohibited from being granted asylum under our current 
system. Yet the REAL ID Act will make it increasingly difficult for 
those escaping political persecution and torture to seek refuge.
  In addition, the REAL ID Act would suspend habeas corpus review of 
orders of removal for aliens in the United States. Essentially, this 
change eliminates the right of aliens facing deportation to ask the 
court to review their deportation, a right which the Supreme Court has 
already upheld. This provision will deny innocently detained aliens the 
opportunity to plead their case before a judge. This goes against the 
core principle upon which our Nation was founded.
  It is unfortunate these unsound provisions will be enacted as part of 
this bill. It is my hope that in the very near future we will be able 
to have a national discussion on immigration in a comprehensive, 
thoughtful, and deliberate way that will provide real solutions to real 
problems. It is not possible to solve our immigration problems by 
simply removing those who seek legitimate help from our Nation, or by 
raising the bar for those who are immigrating here legally. As a nation 
of immigrants and a global leader on human rights, the inclusion of the 
REAL ID Act in this bill and in this manner is unacceptable, and I will 
work with like-minded colleagues to reverse this law.
  I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask 
unanimous consent the time under the quorum be charged equally to both 
sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. DeMint). Without objection, it is so 
ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the fiscal year 
2005 emergency supplemental appropriations bill. Every day in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces risk their 
lives to defend ours. They are completing a mission they did not ask 
for and, in Iraq, a mission that is longer and more dangerous than they 
were ever told. Yet amid roadside explosions, insurgent attacks, and 
the loss of some of their closest friends, they wake up each day and do 
their jobs. They wake up each day and do whatever it takes to leave a 
democratic Iraq for a free Iraqi people.
  This bill is a way for us to support these efforts. With its passage, 
I sincerely hope our troops will receive all the support and all the 
equipment they need to do their job. With its passage, I hope we do not 
hear any more stories about troops driving convoys with unarmored 
humvees, or about troops going into battle with armor their parents had 
to send them from home for their birthday. And I sincerely hope this 
money will be used to train more Iraqis to secure their own country so

[[Page 9018]]

we can bring home our young people safe and secure.
  I particularly thank the chairman and ranking member of the 
Appropriations Committee for working with me on several other emergency 
spending needs.
  I say to Senator Cochran, I appreciate that this bill provides $25 
million for the prevention of the avian flu. As some of you may have 
read, the number of cases in Southeast Asia is increasing, and there is 
serious concern that this virus could mutate and jump from continent to 
continent, potentially causing a pandemic that could kill millions of 
people. We have to work proactively to prevent such a pandemic, and I 
appreciate the support from the committee chairman as well as the 
administration on this issue.
  Also included in the bill is an amendment I sponsored with my friend 
from South Carolina, Senator Graham. This amendment will ensure that 
our injured service members who remain under medical care but are no 
longer hospitalized will not have to pay for their meals while 
receiving therapy. I thank the graciousness of Senator Cochran for 
adopting that amendment on the floor without debate.
  I also joined with Senator Durbin to address the security needs of 
our judiciary. As some of my colleagues know, a Federal judge in 
Illinois recently suffered a tragic loss, the murder of her mother and 
her husband. This bill provides necessary funding for the U.S. Marshal 
Service to step up its security for our Federal judges.
  I commend all those who have been involved, including the chairman, 
for crafting a number of important measures in this bill. I wish that I 
could, without any further statement, simply say how proud I am of our 
troops and move on with the supplemental. Unfortunately, this bill also 
includes some immigration provisions, known as REAL ID, that cause me 
enormous concern. Although I will certainly vote for the conference 
report because of the good measures I have already discussed, it is 
important to state for the record my serious reservations about REAL 
ID.
  Despite the fact that almost all of these immigration provisions are 
controversial, the Senate did not conduct a full hearing or debate on 
any one of them. While they may do very little to increase homeland 
security, they come at a heavy price for struggling State budgets and 
our values as a compassionate country. The driver's license provisions 
in REAL ID, for example, will cost an estimated $100 million over 5 
years. States will have to bear the majority of these costs. At a time 
when budgets are tight, I don't think we should be outsourcing our 
homeland security to States that can't afford it.
  The cost to our Nation's legacy as a refuge for asylum seekers is 
also heavy. Conferees were able to improve some aspects of REAL ID, 
including increasing the limit on the number of foreigners who can 
apply for asylum in the United States, but other provisions intended to 
eliminate fraudulent asylum applications may end up denying asylum to 
people who deserve to receive it.
  These are costs that call for greater examination. As a sovereign 
country, we have the right to control and identify those who enter and 
exit. I have worked with my colleagues to support hundreds of millions 
of dollars for more Border Patrol agents to help exercise that right. 
But controlling immigration is a Federal responsibility--it always has 
been--and it should not come at the expense of State budgets or basic 
civil liberties. We should have more time to examine and debate the 
REAL ID provisions as part of comprehensive immigration reform.
  These provisions, currently in the bill, are opposed by religious 
organizations, civil liberties groups, civil rights organizations, 
church groups, and hundreds of other groups. The legitimate concerns of 
these groups have not been properly aired in the Senate. I am aware of 
the fact that the REAL ID Act, despite what I say, despite my 
reservations, will become law. It will become law not because it is the 
right thing to do but because the House majority has abused its 
privilege to attach this unexamined bill to must-pass legislation. This 
is highly inappropriate, and I hope that all of the Senate will agree 
to highlight and correct the deficiencies of these immigration 
provisions in the year to come.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I support our troops and their families. 
I am behind them 100 percent. They deserve our gratitude, not just with 
words, but with deeds. This emergency supplemental appropriations bill 
helps us do just that.
  The House and Senate have worked hard to respond to the President's 
request for additional funding to support our operations in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. We have provided more than $75 million in defense-related 
spending, including vital support to our soldiers and their families. 
We have also provided more than $6 billion in assistance to our friends 
and allies, including $681 million to aid in the recovery from last 
year's terrible tsunami in Indonesia.
  We have provided a total of $17.4 billion to speed up the Army's 
purchase of trucks, additional up-armored hum-
vees, and upgrades to Abrams tanks. There is also $1 billion for 
additional purchases of Army and Marine Corps trucks, tactical vehicles 
like humvees, night vision and other important protective equipment to 
keep our soldiers as safe as possible on the battlefield. We have also 
preserved support for the C130J aircraft, so vital to transporting 
troops and materiel around the world.
  U.S. troops will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan long enough to ensure 
that those nations can defend themselves against chaos and terrorism. 
It is important that we provide training and equipment to prepare Iraqi 
and Afghan security forces to take over when American troops come home.
  To do this, we have provided $7.0 billion to train security forces in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. There is also $1.78 billion for Afghan 
reconstruction and counter-narcotics efforts. In addition to providing 
$7.7 million to support U.S. diplomatic and reconstruction efforts in 
Iraq, we have provided $20 million in assistance to Iraqi families who 
have been affected by coalition operations in Iraq.
  We must do everything we can to care for soldiers when they are 
injured. I am very proud that we have provided an additional $211 
million for the Defense Health program.
  This funding also includes assistance to provide meal and telephone 
services for soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in Iraq or 
Afghanistan. It also provides assistance for family members to travel 
to be with an injured service member recovering from combat injuries. 
To help soldiers with the enormous medical costs that can be associated 
with combat injuries, we have also made it possible for service members 
to get traumatic-injury protection as part of their military insurance 
package. This insurance rider can be worth as much as $100,000 to 
service members enrolled in the Servicemembers Group Life Insurance, 
SGLI, program. We have also made it available retroactively, to help 
out those soldiers and families already dealing with combat and combat-
related injuries.
  Mr. President, more than 1,700 service men and women have made the 
ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan. Part of the debt of 
gratitude we owe the families they leave behind is to ensure that they 
do not have to face a financial crisis while they are dealing with the 
loss of a loved one.
  I am very proud that we have been able to help alleviate their 
burden, by increasing from $12,000 to $100,000 the fallen heroes 
compensation for family members of troops who make the ultimate 
sacrifice for our country. This benefit is applied retroactively, to 
include all service members who have died since the global war on 
terror began in October 2001. In addition, the family of a service 
member who has died will be allowed to remain in military housing for a 
year, rather than the six months currently allowed. We have also 
increased the life insurance benefit provided under the SGLI, from 
$250,000 to $400,000. This increase will also be applied retroactively 
to 2001.
  I am disappointed that the conferees did not accept the advice of the 
Senate--and of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff GEN Richard 
Myers--

[[Page 9019]]

and provide the fallen heroes compensation to families of all service 
members who die on active duty.
  Instead, Congress has expanded all aspects of the current coverage to 
include those who die in designated combat zones and in combat-related 
activities, such as training. This is a good start, but I agree with 
General Myers that every family who loses a loved one on active duty 
deserves the gratitude of this nation and should benefit from the 
fallen heroes fund.
  We also need to make sure that families receive the full amount of 
this compensation. Working closely with Senator Grassley, I have taken 
steps to ensure that the full benefit will be tax free. Senator 
Grassley has assured me that this important correction will be added to 
the next tax bill considered in the Senate.
  We know that nearly 40 percent of the soldiers deployed today in Iraq 
and Afghanistan are citizen soldiers who come from the National Guard 
and Reserves. More than half of these will suffer a loss of income when 
they are mobilized, because their military pay is less than the pay 
from their civilian job. Many patriotic employers and state governments 
eliminate this pay gap by continuing to pay them the difference between 
their civilian and military pay.
  I am very disappointed that this conference report does not include 
the Reservist Pay Security Act, which would ensure that the U.S. 
government also makes up for this pay gap for Federal employees who are 
activated in the Guard and Reserves. This legislation has passed the 
Senate three times, and three times it has been stripped out of the 
conference report. I will continue to work with my colleagues in the 
House and Senate to build support for this important provision to help 
our National Guard and Reserves.
  Mr. President, Americans joined the world in mourning the loss of 
more than 150,000 victims of the Indian Ocean Tsunami last Christmas. 
Together, we prayed for the 7 million displaced survivors that God may 
give them the strength to persevere and overcome this, the largest 
natural disaster of our time.
  But expressions of sympathy are not enough. As I said at the time of 
this terrible disaster, the United States must set the example and lead 
the world in the humanitarian effort of recovery and rebuilding. 
Congress has provided $656 million for the tsunami recovery and 
reconstruction fund to support on-going and long-term relief efforts, 
including programs aimed specifically at women and children in the 
affected areas. We have also provided $25 million for U.S. tsunami 
warning programs to help prevent future human disasters on the scale we 
have seen in Asia.
  The people of Darfur continue to suffer the terrible effects of war 
in the Sudan. Congress has provided $248 million for humanitarian 
assistance to Darfur and $37 million for Sudan peace implementation 
assistance. We have also included $50 million to be made available to 
the African Union, for peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. Also, part of 
the $90 million provided for food aid and famine relief can be used to 
help improve conditions in Darfur.
  Because it is just as important to support our communities at home as 
it is to support our troops in the field, I will continue to fight for 
responsible military budgets. For that reason, I joined the Senate's 
efforts to insist that the President fund our operations in Iraq and 
Afghanistan through the regular budget and appropriations process. 
After three years in Afghanistan and two years in Iraq, we should not 
be funding these operations as if they were surprise emergencies.
  Unfortunately, because much of the funding included in this 
conference report has been designated as an ``emergency,'' it will not 
count against our budget limits and instead just gets added to our 
ever-growing national debt.
  This emergency supplemental is a Federal investment in supporting our 
troops and their families.
  We support out troops by getting them the best equipment and the best 
protection we can provide. We support them by getting them the best 
health care available when they are injured in service to our Nation. 
And we support them by ensuring that their families do not face a 
financial crisis at the moment when they are grieving the loss of a 
soldier who has sacrificed everything for our country.
  I am proud to vote yes for our troops and their families. I am also 
proud to vote yes because this bill contains important provisions to 
help small and seasonal businesses in the United States.
  The emergency supplemental contains language that provides real 
relief to small businesses that need temporary seasonal workers by the 
summer. This emergency supplemental contains the language I offered on 
the floor of the Senate to temporarily solve the H2B visa shortage. It 
passed this body by a overwhelming bipartisan vote of 96-4 and was 
adopted by both House and Senate conferees to be part of the final 
bill.
  I know that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle supported this 
amendment because it is a limited fix to the H2B worker shortage that 
many coastal states and resort states are facing. This solution is 
desperately and immediately needed by small and seasonal businesses 
throughout the country.
  My amendment helps us keep American jobs, keep American companies 
open, and yet retain control of our borders
  I am very proud that we were able to work together, House and Senate, 
Democrats and Republicans, to pass this measure. This bill was a simply 
fix, it was temporary and it does not get in the way of comprehensive 
reform
  The amendment and the Save our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act on 
which it is modeled will help small business by doing three things:
  No. 1, temporarily exempting good actor workers from the H2B cap, so 
employers apply for and name employees who have already been in U.S.;
  No. 2, protecting against fraud in the H2B program; and
  No. 3, providing a fair and balanced allocation system for H2B visas.
  This amendment first and foremost protects American jobs.
  It provides a short-term fix to the H2B visa cap which will only be 
in place through fiscal year 2006. It has four simple provisions:
  One, it exempts returning seasonal workers from the cap for this year 
and next. That means that people who have worked here before and who 
have gone back home are the only ones who would be eligible. The 
exemption works this way--an employer requests a visa and lists the 
name of the returning worker on his petition. The employer must provide 
supporting documentation to the Department of Homeland Security or the 
State Department that the worker is a returning worker who has come to 
the United States in one of the 3 prior years under the H2B program.
  This exemption does not exempt any new workers because employers must 
show that the worker was in the US previously in order for that worker 
to be exempt from the cap. Employers can petition for exempted workers 
at any time during the fiscal year--regardless of whether the cap on H-
2B visas has been met or not. The legislation explicitly states that 
exempted workers are outside the cap.
  The employer does not automatically get the exempted worker, they 
still must go through the whole DOL and DHS process before they can get 
exempted workers. That means that employers still must prove to the 
Department of Labor that they cannot find American workers to fill 
these jobs. Only then will DOL give them the ability to continue the 
application process and get the workers who they need through DHS and 
State. Employers will go through the whole process for new or returning 
workers. Returning workers will be exempt from but new workers will be 
subject to the cap.
  This provision is both forward looking and retroactive back to the 
beginning of the fiscal year, or October 2004. That means that DHS will 
have to determine how many returning workers were admitted prior to the 
passage of this Act and open up those spaces to new workers. That makes 
it fair so that summer employers have the same bite at the apple that 
winter employers

[[Page 9020]]

had. DHS estimates that between 30,000 and 35,000 workers are returning 
workers and they will be able to use the information they have in their 
databases and in coordination with the Department of State to ensure 
that spots that were counted in the cap and used by exempted workers 
will now be opened up for new workers to use so that summer employers 
can get their fair share.
  This fix also has strong antifraud provisions to make sure that 
everyone is playing by the rules and that no one is misusing the 
program. And it gives DHS added teeth to prevent fraud and enforce our 
Nation's immigration laws. A $150 antifraud fee ensures that Government 
agencies processing the H-2B visas will get added resources to detect 
and prevent fraud. This money is added to an antifruad fund to give the 
Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State and the 
Department of Labor some added resources to train workers so that they 
can identify fraud in the program.
  We also add strong new sanctions to the law. These sanctions are 
permanent and further strengthen DHS's enforcement power by allowing 
sanctions against those who have a significant misrepresentation of 
facts on a petition. We increase fines and allow DHS to bar violating 
employers from the H-2B program for up to 5 years. This section also 
sends a strong message to employers--don't play games with U.S. jobs. 
Our bill reserves the highest penalties for employer actions which harm 
U.S. workers.
  We also make the system better by creating a fair allocation of 
visas. Under current law summer employers lose out because winter 
employers get all the visas. So our bill does two things: First, as I 
said above, we exempt returning workers from the cap, so returning 
workers don't count for the cap. But we also divide the cap between 
summer and winter. What that means is that of the 66,000 visas and we 
make 33,000 available from October thru March and 33,000 available from 
April thru September. Winter employers get half and summer employers 
get half. And we make this change permanent to make sure that even if 
comprehensive reform cannot be reached by 2006, then at least summer 
and winter employers are competing for the limited number of visas on a 
level playing field.
  Finally, we give the Department of Homeland Security the ability to 
implement this law now, without having to issue regulations. That means 
that employers get real relief now. DHS has a limited exemption from 
the Administrative Procedure Act to implement the exemption section, 
the antifraud fees and also the allocation of visas section. These 
exemptions are to prevent any barriers or delay to the immediate 
implementation of those provisions.
  So that is what this strong bipartisan legislation is all about. This 
is the language that 94 Senators in this body supported and that the 
House adopted into the emergency supplemental conference report.
  Now we want to make sure that DHS can start its implementation 
immediately so I want to make sure that they are very clear about what 
the congressional intent of this legislation is:
  Section 402 is intended to increase the number of H-2B admissions 
available for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. This legislation was drafted 
with the understanding that the preexisting USCIS method of 
implementing the H-2B limitation is based upon accepting for filing the 
number of petitions (only some of which name the specific workers) that 
is projected to result in the authorized number of admissions, with 
allowance made for an expected number of petitions that will be denied 
or revoked and of workers with approved petitions who will not apply 
for or qualify for visas or admission, based upon State Department 
information.
  Consistent with this general methodology, and with the fact that 
USCIS has already received sufficient petitions for fiscal year 2005 to 
fill the cap and has not required any information to be provided as to 
whether the petitions were filed for ``returning workers'', it is 
intended that USCIS to make its best estimate as to the number of 
previously filed petitions that likely were for returning workers, 
based on State Department information, and accordingly to free up 
numbers for fiscal year 2005 to be available to otherwise qualified H-
2B aliens, whether or not they are ``returning workers.''
  In addition, H-2B workers will be available to petitioners 
identifying and certifying specific aliens to be returning workers. For 
fiscal year 2006, the number of new H-2B admissions available will be 
66,000, plus any aliens for whom the certification and confirmation 
requirements of section 214(g)(9)(A), (B), and (C) of the Immigration 
and Nationality Act, as amended by this section, are met.
  Specifically, Section 405 provides that the 66,000 limitation on H-2B 
admissions for fiscal year 2006 and thereafter will be administered as 
two half-year limitations of 33,000 each applicable to aliens subject 
to the overall 66,000 limitation, i.e, not including ``returning 
workers.'' It is the intention of the supporters of the amendment that 
this provision be administered so as to give employers seeking workers 
for the second half of the year an opportunity to obtain them at least 
equivalent to that available to first semester employers.
  Finally, section 407, is intended to allow this law to be implemented 
expeditiously. The intent was to make sure that the provisions of the 
Administrative Procedure Act, the Paperwork Reduction Act, and other 
laws relating to regulatory processes and forms--especially, but not 
limited to, any requirement to promulgate new rules--to the extent any 
such provisions might apply, should not pose a barrier in any way to 
the expeditious implementation of the provisions of this Act intended 
to give urgent and necessary relief to summer and seasonal employers 
and to apply the new fee provision in section 403. We therefore, 
provide the authority to the relevant departments to waive any such 
requirement that may otherwise delay such implementation.
  It is a quick and simple legislative remedy with strong bi-partisan 
support. It fixes the problem now and takes small steps to prevent this 
drastic shortage in the future. It is immediate and achievable because 
DHS will start implementation once it is signed by the President. And 
more importantly, it does not exacerbate our immigration problems.
  Mr. President, it is important that we continue to support the brave 
men and women who put their lives on the line both at home and abroad. 
But today, as I support funding for our troops I also stand opposed to 
the part of the emergency supplemental known as REAL ID.
  This controversial and overly-broad provision has no place in an 
emergency spending bill. The changes to our immigration laws and the 
policies on asylum proposed by this legislation are major modifications 
that are contentious on both sides of the aisle. As it is written, this 
bill undermines both due process and the principles of fundamental 
fairness on which our immigration laws are based.
  This legislation, plain and simple, is a drastic and unknown change. 
It is the type of change that both the House and the Senate should have 
deliberated on and given in-depth consideration to. The Senate has not 
had the opportunity to do that.
  Just look at what this legislation does:
  First, it increases the burdens on those seeking asylum in the United 
States and limits judicial review of some decisions. These are people 
who are often persecuted in their own countries and cannot produce the 
level of documentation or corroboration of their abuse that this bill 
requires.
  Next, it permits the Department of Homeland Security to waive ``all 
legal requirements'' that interfere with the construction of roads or 
barriers along our borders. That means that the Secretary of Homeland 
Security can waive any State or Federal environmental, health and 
safety, civil rights, labor, or criminal law. And there is very limited 
ability of anyone to challenge these decisions. That means the 
Secretary has a tremendous amount of discretion to override existing 
laws and step all over State's rights.

[[Page 9021]]

  It also limits judicial review of removal cases and discretionary 
decisions of agencies--that means an agency, not a judge, will have the 
final say.
  And most notably, it creates national standards for identification 
cards that States must enforce. That means that States now must not 
only verify the many forms of identification that are required, but 
they are also responsible for keeping track of a drivers license 
holder's immigration status. That creates a huge increase in expenses 
for States and it also means that State officials, who have no 
background in immigration law, will be forced to enforce these 
complicated provisions. That's an unfunded mandate on States that are 
already in fiscal crisis.
  Plain and simple REAL ID drastically changes immigration laws, limits 
access to the courts and due process, and places significant new costs 
and duties on local and State governments. The Senate should have had 
the ability to review, debate, and amend this provision before it 
became a permanent part of our Federal immigration law.
  Now, I am the first to agree that we need strong and comprehensive 
immigration reform. We need to look at all the problems with protecting 
our borders and ensuring our safety. We need to make sure that the 
programs that work are updated and continued. We need to make sure that 
the programs that don't work are fixed so that we do not have porous 
borders. But we need to use regular order to do so.
  The Senate must have the opportunity to consider comprehensive 
reform, not focus on piecemeal measures. And President Bush should lead 
the way in working with Congress and our allies for solutions that 
protect our borders. And for solutions that allow our rich history and 
tradition of immigration to continue. But these supposed solutions 
cannot come at the expense of our constitutional framework.
  REAL ID is an unfunded mandate that is punitive. We do not know if 
any of the provisions will actually make us safer--we just know that 
they override States rights and undermine civil rights and civil 
liberties. I believe that it is our duty, as Members of the Senate, to 
balance national security interests with due process and constitutional 
rights, yet because we have not had hearings or been able to evaluate 
this change to our immigration law we do not know the extent of its 
impact.
  REAL ID proposes several different and significant changes to our 
immigration laws, I believe that it is important for the Senate 
Judiciary Committee to have an opportunity to hold hearings and 
consider comprehensive legislation that looks at all areas of the law. 
Then the whole Senate should have the ability to fully debate the issue 
on the Senate floor.
  I am disappointed that this controversial measure was added to this 
must pass legislation. We should be passing an emergency supplemental 
bill without the harmful REAL ID provision. And then we should turn our 
attention to real reform and the Senate should proceed to a thoughtful 
and comprehensive debate on immigration reform that protects our 
borders and our constitutional mandate.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, the attacks of September 11, 2001 reminded 
us all that national security is of the utmost importance. Since then, 
we have worked to ensure the safety of this country. Still, there are 
gaps in our immigration and identification systems that need attention. 
Those with ties to terrorist organizations should not be given asylum 
or permission to live in this country where they can do harm. Barriers 
on our borders should be enhanced to adequately protect our national 
security. Driver's licenses and personal ID cards should be secure, and 
should not be given to terrorists or those who are in this country 
illegally.
  There are provisions to address each of these concerns in the REAL ID 
Act of 2005, which has been attached to the Emergency Supplemental 
Appropriations Act. I have expressed my reservations about possible 
unforeseen costs to my State of Montana that these provisions could 
impose, particularly the costs of changing the system of issuing 
driver's licenses. Ultimately, however, I firmly believe that the 
fundamental aspects of this bill will make Montana, a border State 
where homeland security is of paramount concern, and our country safer 
and more secure in this era where illegal immigration is out of control 
and the security of our identification systems continues to be lacking. 
I am confident that any remaining funding issues can be worked out 
later in the implementation process. Our job now is to move forward, 
and make sure that these provisions are put into place with the best 
interest of this country in mind.
  As I have said before, my State of Montana has one of the largest 
international borders. A lot of attention has been placed on border 
security lately, particularly on the northern border. I think we can 
all agree that the northern border has been historically understaffed 
and lacks the necessary infrastructure to adequately screen individuals 
seeking entry into the United States who wish to do us harm. I have 
always supported increasing the number of border patrol agents along 
Montana's northern border. It does not make sense for the Department of 
Homeland Security to heavily staff the southern borders while leaving 
large gaps wide open on the northern border. The end result is that 
those wanting to enter the United States illegally may focus on the 
less secured border regions of the north so that they may cross over 
undetected. Unfortunately, the grave threat of this happening along 
Montana's vast border remains a reality.
  In view of this, during debate on the Emergency Supplemental 
Appropriations Act, I was a cosponsor of the Ensign amendment which was 
adopted that would increase the number of Border Patrol agents and 
provide funding for Border Patrol facilities. I am happy to report that 
the conferees reached a compromise that would provide $635 million for 
increased border security and enforcement; this includes $176 million 
to hire, train, equip, and support 500 Border Patrol agents and relieve 
current facility overcrowding. The supplemental also includes almost 
half a billion dollars for Immigration and Customs enforcement; $97.5 
million of this would be used to hire and train additional criminal 
investigators and immigration enforcement agents.
  I will always vote to protect our homeland and the safety of our 
citizens, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same as the Senate 
considers the supplemental for final passage.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations 
bill for fiscal year 2005 is a vital piece of legislation. It provides 
$75.9 billion for the Department of Defense, nearly $4 billion for the 
Department of State, and billions more for military construction and 
other national priorities. It will come as no surprise to anyone that 
Congress will pass this bill with an overwhelming majority. Instead, we 
should be asking what took so long.
  The administration continues to play games with the funding of the 
war on terror and the war in Iraq. These aren't inside-the-beltway 
issues. Every day the administration resists bringing forward an 
accurate and reasonable accounting of our future needs in Iraq, it 
complicates the way the Department of Defense conducts business.
  In recent weeks, the Pentagon has been forced to shuffle $1.1 billion 
to cover Army shortfalls while the Department of Defense waits for the 
President to sign the supplemental into law. That $1.1 billion came out 
of Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Army National Guard personnel 
accounts. That is a dangerous way to conduct business.
  As we pass this legislation, I urge the President to heed the advice 
of so many Senators who believe that he must better reflect the costs 
of war in his regular defense budgets and simply be straight with the 
American people about the ongoing costs of operations in Iraq and 
elsewhere. Our troops shouldn't have to wait for the gear and equipment 
they need to do their jobs well, to win the peace in Iraq, to bring the 
terrorists to justice in Afghanistan and around the world, and to come 
home.
  This bill takes some important steps toward the Military Family Bill 
of

[[Page 9022]]

Rights which we have talked about for many months. It increases to 
$400,000 the life insurance coverage available to service members, and 
raises the death gratuity to $100,000 for those who die in combat and 
in combat-related incidents, including training. It also extends to 1 
year the length of time widows and children of military personnel may 
remain in military housing. Together, these provisions are important 
affirmations of the Congress' support for the men and women of the 
American military and their families. I thank the House-Senate 
conferees for including those provisions.
  I regret that the House-Senate Conferees struck a provision that the 
Senate added to pay an equal death gratuity to the survivors of all 
service members killed while on active duty, regardless of the 
circumstances. This policy was supported by 75 Senators in a floor 
vote. It was supported by the House in its version of the legislation. 
And it is supported by the uniformed leadership of the military. It is 
clear that the civilian leadership at the Pentagon, led by Secretary 
Rumsfeld, opposed it. While they have succeeded in striking the 
provision from this supplemental legislation, I will continue to work 
with my colleagues, many of whom have worked on this issue for some 
time, for its enactment.
  While I support this bill overall, I have serious concerns about the 
attachment of the REAL ID Act to the conference report. This 
legislation creates new hurdles for legitimate asylum seekers, allows 
the government to waive environmental laws to build physical barriers 
on the border, and forces an unfunded mandate on the States. This 
legislation did not have so much as a hearing in the U.S. Senate. Such 
legislation should be considered in committee and before the full 
Senate, rather than being attached to an emergency spending bill. It is 
my hope that the Senate will work to amend the most damaging provisions 
of the REAL ID Act as soon as possible.
  I am pleased that the conference report includes the ``Save our Small 
and Seasonal Businesses Act'' which makes changes to the H-2B visa 
program. This provision will provide great relief to many small 
businesses in Massachusetts that count on foreign workers to keep their 
seasonal businesses open.
  Mr. President, I would also like to thank the conferees for 
addressing potentially damaging anti-small business language in this 
bill which would have allowed small business subcontracts at the 
Department of Energy to be counted as prime contracts and capped all 
small business contracting goals at 23 percent. Section 6023 had strong 
bipartisan opposition from members of the Small Business Committees and 
from other members concerned about protecting small business federal 
contracting. The compromise language included in Section 6022 of the 
final version of this bill lays out a process for the Small Business 
Administration and the Department of Energy to expand small business 
contracting.
  The compromise requires the Small Business Administration and the 
Department of Energy to develop a Memorandum of Understanding, MOU, on 
a methodology for measuring the achievement of awarding prime contracts 
and subcontracts to small businesses. It is my understanding that MOU 
will in no way count the subcontracts awarded by DOE's management and 
operations contractors towards DOE's prime contracting goal. Section 
6022 also requires DOE and SBA to conduct a joint study of changes at 
DOE that would encourage greater opportunities for small business 
contracting, and it includes temporary relief for local small firms 
that are facing undue burdens as a result of contracts being broken out 
from large, bundled management and operations contracts.
  Mr. President, the Department of Energy has the worst small business 
utilization record of all Federal agencies. This compromise is an 
opportunity to address the growing challenges facing small firms as a 
result of contract bundling, the need for greater diligence by the 
administration in its effort to meet the 23 percent government-wide 
minimum goal for small business contracting, and the need for greater 
management and oversight by the Department of Energy of the contracting 
dollars being awarded by the Agency. I hope the administration will use 
this opportunity to improve small business contracting at the DOE and 
will draw on the conclusions of the ongoing studies being released by 
the GAO to address the current shortfalls in small business prime 
contracting and subcontracting oversight. As the ranking member of the 
Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, I am committed to 
working with the other committees of jurisdiction, including the Energy 
Committee, to ensure that DOE and SBA do not undermine the intent of 
Section 6022 by using this compromise language to prevent small 
businesses from receiving their fair share of DOE prime contracts.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I rise today in support of H.R. 1268, the Emergency 
Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, 
and Tsunami Relief.
  First, while this bill addresses many areas of concern, it is 
primarily focused on providing the American military sufficient funds 
for its mission to aid Afghanistan in creating a strong and stable 
nation and to ensure the security necessary to rebuild Iraq.
  Provisions in the bills to support American soldiers and their 
families, such as increasing the death benefit gratuity for soldiers 
killed this year to $100,000 and providing all members of the armed 
forces with free meals and phone service, are the right thing to do. We 
will no longer force men and women who volunteered to serve in one of 
the most dangerous environments to recuperate without the support of 
loved ones while charging them for their meals. Other important 
provisions, such as providing more money to combat the effectiveness of 
improvised explosive devices, or IED's, and providing $150 million for 
the purchase of up-armored humvees, will serve to protect Americans 
already operating in combat zones. The biggest danger to Americans in 
uniform remains the IED; by using funds to both prevent the IED from 
exploding and then ensuring that those that do go off near a humvee are 
defended against, I can safely say that we are working toward the 
ultimate goal of mitigating the largest source of American casualties.
  I was also happy to see that the bill also requires reports on the 
status of training for both the Afghan and Iraqi security forces, so 
that the American public is not given arbitrary numbers of successfully 
trained soldiers and policemen without an understanding of their 
capabilities. Just as importantly, the bill states that the President 
should submit an appropriate budget amendment for FY 2006 by September 
1, 2005.
  There are also some very important, non-military, provisions in this 
legislation, nearly all of which I co-sponsored when it came to the 
floor. All will contribute significantly to the establishment of 
increased stability in regions throughout the world. For example, the 
United States has done far too little to stop the genocide and 
atrocities that continue to occur in Darfur, Sudan. This legislation 
specifically dedicates $50 million to support efforts by the African 
Union to bring a halt to the violence and another $90 million in 
humanitarian assistance for refugees in the region. The United States 
has hardly anything at all to create a stable and viable government in 
Haiti, this in spite of the fact that the country is only miles from 
our shore. This legislation provides $20 million to assist in efforts 
at institution-building, law enforcement, and democracy promotion.
  Significantly, this legislation is the only vehicle available for 
disaster assistance to the countries affected by the tsunami in the 
Indian Ocean. I need not remind anyone that this was likely the most 
catastrophic natural event in recent history, with nearly 200,000 
people in eight countries dying in just a few hours. Over 100,000 are 
still missing. Thousands had their homes, family, and livelihoods swept 
away. The cost in dollars is easily in the hundreds of billions.
  It is imperative that the United States step up to the plate and 
assist in repair and reconstruction. We have

[[Page 9023]]

pledged almost a billion dollars to this effort, and this legislation 
provides an initial $656 million to help people get back on their feet. 
A substantial portion of the funding is directed toward repairing 
replacing essential services--roads and highways, telecommunications 
and energy infrastructure, and water and food distribution systems, and 
so on. But portions of the funding are dedicated to other critical 
issues that will allow these countries to get back to baseline--
programs designed to assist women with new economic opportunities now 
that they have lost the provider in their families, programs designed 
to assist individuals with mental or physical disabilities as a result 
of the tsunami, programs designed to protect orphaned children from 
violence and exploitation and reunify them with extended or immediate 
families, programs to provide loans, business advice and training in 
job skills so new sources of income and new businesses are developed; 
and programs to stop the spread of disease, including avian flu.
  This bill provides funding for many important causes which I fully 
support. But let me take a few moments to discuss a few provisions 
about which I have significant concerns.
  First, the conference committee removed a provision that I had 
included in the Senate version of the bill that would have helped 
Federal courts cover costs associated with the substantial increase in 
immigration related cases filed as a result of recent border 
enforcement efforts. I strongly support efforts to enhance our border 
security--indeed, I cosponsored an amendment to this bill that was 
offered by Senator Robert Byrd that provided funding to hire an 
additional 500 border patrol agents and have consistently voted to 
allocate additional resources to secure our Nation's border. However, 
we must also consider the impact that these enforcement measures are 
having on our Nation's courts, especially in districts along the border 
region. Since 1995, immigration cases in the 5 southwestern border 
districts--the District of Arizona, District of New Mexico, Southern 
District of California, and Southern and Western Districts of Texas--
have grown approximately 828 percent. In 2003, overall immigration 
filings in U.S. District Courts jumped 22 percent, and in 2004 they 
jumped 11 percent. Of these cases, 69 percent came from these 5 
districts.
  We can't just fund the enforcement side without considering what will 
happen to these individuals once they are detained. This approach not 
only places a tremendous burden on our courts, but it also threatens 
our national security by limiting the ability of the courts and 
probation services to provide adequate case oversight.
  Second, the REAL ID Act, which was attached to the bill by the House 
of Representatives, was included in the final version of the bill. 
Although the conference committee made several minor modifications to 
lessen the impact of these provisions, I remain strongly opposed to 
this section of the bill. The REAL ID Act never received a hearing in 
the Senate and Republicans on the conference committee refused to 
consult with their Democrat counterparts on this language. The bill 
make it more difficult for legitimate asylum applicants to obtain a 
safe haven in the United States and authorizes the Secretary of 
Homeland Security to waive all legal requirements which could impede 
the construction of a fence along the border with Mexico. It also 
repeals provisions of the recently-passed Intelligence Reform and 
Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which implemented the recommendations 
of the 9/11 Commission. Specifically, the intelligence reform bill 
charged the Department of Transportation, in consultation with the 
States, with promulgating ``minimum standards'' for State driver's 
licenses in order to prevent fraud or abuse. Without enhancing our 
national security, the REAL ID Act repeals this section and replaces it 
with a system that will be extremely difficult and costly for States to 
implement. I know that these provisions will have a significant impact 
on my home State of New Mexico, and it is my hope that Congress will be 
able to revisit this legislation in the near future.
  Thus, while there are some aspects of this supplemental request that 
remain troubling to me and many of my Senate colleagues, I know that by 
supporting this bill we are working to create a more peaceful and 
stable world community and meet more of the needs of our brave soldiers 
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I will vote for the conference report 
because I believe we have few higher priorities than the safety and 
well-being of our troops deployed in harm's way. This legislation is 
critical to the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing funding 
to purchase life-saving armor, replenishing stocks of spare parts and 
ammunition, and increasing the government's financial support for the 
families of America's fallen heroes.
  Probably one of the most significant provisions in this legislation 
is the $308 million added above what the President proposed to ensure 
that more humvees deployed in combat are adequately armored. Just as in 
the previous 2 years, I have been deeply troubled by continuing 
shortfalls in the administration's plans for outfitting our troops with 
the protection they need. Over 1,600 U.S. troops have been killed in 
Iraq since the beginning of the war in March 2003. And rarely a day 
goes by that one does not hear about an improvised explosive device or 
roadside bomb seriously injuring an American there. This conference 
report is a step in the right direction to better prepare our troops 
for these threats, but more always needs to be done to ensure greater 
security for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. We owe it to 
them to make sure they have the resources to protect themselves as best 
they can.
  And we owe it to their families here at home to make sure that their 
sacrifices are so honored. This bill also authorizes the Department of 
Defense to increase to $500,000 the amount that can be paid to 
surviving families of deceased servicemen and women. In addition, this 
bill rightly includes traumatic injury insurance of up to $100,000 for 
military personnel seriously wounded in action. These provisions are 
the least we as Americans can provide to the families of our men and 
women in uniform who are giving so much to our Nation.
  Not all of this bill directly pertains to our troops deployed in Iraq 
and Afghanistan, however. And while I support many of these provisions, 
there are some sections that give me pause. On the positive side, I am 
pleased by the conference committee's decision to retain the amendment 
put forth by Senator Warner to stop the Navy from downsizing its 
aircraft carrier fleet. We must retain the ability to quickly project 
power around the globe, particularly as emerging powers in Central and 
East Asia amass powerful fleets in direct challenge to U.S. Naval 
supremacy. And this amendment rightly puts the brakes on the 
administration's efforts to cut too deeply into our Navy's critical 
assets.
  In terms of homeland security, this bill adds an additional $450 
million over the President's proposal for more border security and 
customs agents. I support these additional resources and am pleased the 
conferees included them in this bill.
  But this bill is not perfect. Indeed, I have some serious concerns 
about provisions that are included in the conference report before us. 
I also have concerns that certain important issues are not addressed by 
this bill.
  First, I am greatly disappointed that the conferees decided to 
include the majority of the text that makes up a bill called the REAL 
ID Act. There are many troubling provisions in this language--virtually 
the same language that Republican members of the House tried to push 
through as part of last year's intelligence reform legislation. At that 
time, the 9/11 Commission opposed its inclusion. And the Senate 
managers of the bill prevented it from being included in conference.
  But now, the vast majority of the REAL ID language has been included 
in the conference report before us. Although I do not sit on the Senate 
Judiciary Committee, I am concerned that this package of provisions was 
never debated within that panel. I would note

[[Page 9024]]

that an effort to include the language in the Senate version of the 
emergency supplemental was withdrawn after bipartisan opposition to its 
inclusion.
  This bill's REAL ID provisions, among other things, would require 
State departments of motor vehicles to verify documents used to obtain 
drivers licenses. This is an unfunded mandate--the language included in 
this bill does not specifically appropriate any amount for this 
purpose. Reportedly, the National Conference of State Legislatures 
estimates that REAL ID will cost States between $500 million and $700 
million over 5 years to implement. Many States are already dealing with 
budget shortfalls. What impact will this additional financial have on 
States' abilities to provide basic services for their residents?
  These licensing regulations also raise privacy issues, as DMVs will 
gain access to much private information. All Americans, when renewing 
or obtaining a new license, will be subject to these provisions. 
Certainly, some reform with respect to identification documents might 
be needed. But this partisan and hasty approach is not the right way to 
do it--especially when State governments are currently working to 
establish reasonable standards for reform that can be implemented. 
These are only two of the many troubling provisions of the REAL ID 
language, which deal with issues as far reaching as eligibility for 
asylum in the U.S. and border security.
  I also have concerns about issues that were left out of this bill. 
For example, this bill does not include language addressing the 
practice of renditions--the process whereby the U.S. has reportedly 
transferred foreign prisoners, detainees, or combatants to other 
countries for interrogation purposes. Often, the countries to which 
these people have been transferred are known to practice torture. Yet, 
few specifics are known about the practice of renditions.
  Nor does this bill address important issues of accountability, such 
as the extension of the lifespan of the Special Inspector General for 
Iraq Reconstruction, or the SIGIR. The SIGIR has performed admirably, 
but its doors will be closed years before it can complete its task of 
accounting for all American taxpayer money devoted to the 
reconstruction of Iraq. Senator Feingold filed an amendment that would 
have fixed this problem. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership 
failed to support his efforts, and the amendment was ruled non-
germane--even though the SIGIR had originally been created and its 
authority subsequently extended as part of an emergency supplemental 
bill.
  All in all, this bill is a mixed bag. But it contains critically 
important provisions to support our troops--specifically, it will help 
provide some of the equipment our troops need in order to finish their 
jobs safely. Moreover, it will help further the process of training 
Iraqi Army and police forces so that U.S. troops can finish their jobs 
and come home. I believe that it is incumbent upon this body to swiftly 
pass this spending bill. That is why I intend to support it when it 
comes to a vote.
  Mr. CHAFEE. Mr. President, today the Senate considers the conference 
report on the President's emergency supplemental appropriations bill. 
Unfortunately, the REAL ID Act which had been attached in the House 
bill was included in the final measure.
  The REAL ID Act should have been debated as a part of comprehensive 
immigration reform. By attaching REAL ID to a must pass spending 
measure, the critical process of vetting the bill in committee was 
circumvented and an opportunity for discussion and debate, which is 
essential for effective legislation, was denied.
  There are many concerns I have with REAL ID in addition to the 
process used to bring it to the floor. First, the measure is an 
unfunded mandate to the States. Furthermore, unless every State 
complies, the Federal Government will have to mandate the creation of a 
national ID. Between the creation of a new database and approval 
system, training for DMV workers, and struggling State budgets, REAL ID 
will impose real costs.
  More importantly, a database of this type will open up many privacy 
concerns and there must be security safeguards in place to prevent the 
gathered information from being obtained inappropriately.
  Many States, including Rhode Island, have already passed legislation 
setting their own requirements for driver's license recipients. The 
Federal Government should not impinge upon the States' ability to 
decide who can and cannot drive on their roads, especially without the 
funding to support the idea. REAL ID will put more drivers on the road 
without licenses and without insurance.
  I am also concerned about another provision of the REAL ID Act that 
would allow for the waiver of all laws--Federal, State, and local--to 
build barriers and roads at our borders. As a strong advocate of 
environmental protection, I am troubled about blanket waivers from 
environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act and the National 
Environmental Policy Act.
  The REAL ID Act, at its best, should be a catalyst for discussion of 
comprehensive immigration reform. That discussion cannot take place in 
a forum primarily devoted to quickly releasing funds for our troops 
around the world and veterans returning home.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, the emergency supplemental 
appropriations conference report before us today is a critically 
important piece of legislation. This bill will ensure that our troops 
in Iraq, who put their lives on the line for us every day, are properly 
equipped and protected. It provides vital funds to support the 
emergence of a free Afghanistan, and it provides much-needed funding 
for tsunami relief.
  I am supporting this conference report even though I strongly oppose 
the REAL ID provisions that are also included. The REAL ID Act is a 
complete overhaul of our immigration laws that would, amongst other 
things, impose complicated new driver's license requirements on States, 
make it harder for refugees at risk of persecution to be granted 
asylum, and suspend all environmental laws along the U.S. border.
  This language will result in the most significant changes to our 
immigration policy in 10 years. While we have long recognized the need 
for comprehensive immigration reform, this debate has no business 
taking place as part of an emergency spending bill. Legislation of this 
importance deserves to be the subject of focused study and serious 
debate. Passing REAL ID without careful consideration is reckless, 
irresponsible, and a disservice to the American people.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, in this post-9/11 world, it has never 
been so important to work seriously and carefully on efforts to enhance 
our border security.
  We in New York are particularly cognizant of the need for 
comprehensive efforts to make our borders, our ports, our critical 
infrastructure, and our airports as secure as possible. Like no other 
place in America, like no other place in the world, New Yorkers I 
represent know what terrorism looks like, feels like, and costs to our 
communities, the economy and our psyches.
  It is crystal clear to almost everyone that there are many questions 
that need to be answered about how we secure our borders. As a member 
of the Judiciary Committee and a Senator from New York, an enormous 
amount of my time and energy is devoted to just those questions. And 
indeed, I don't think we are doing enough to secure our borders. But 
sneaking drastic changes to our immigration laws into a must-pass 
measure supporting our troops is not the way to address these Issues.
  Opinions are mixed about how effective the REAL ID bill will be in 
enhancing national security. But regardless of what you might think 
about the merits of the bill itself--I, for instance, have serious 
concerns regarding the impact of its asylum provisions--this is an 
issue that requires serious debate. Instead, the Republican leadership 
has completely bypassed the committee process and slipped this 
controversial and complicated proposal into the emergency supplemental 
bill, which we will have to approve because it provides the necessary 
support of our men

[[Page 9025]]

and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the vital relief 
for the tsunami victims abroad.
  Immigrants have built New York and this country from the bottom up. 
Our country was founded by and made stronger by the hard work of 
immigrants from all different countries, cultures, religions and races. 
I marvel how our new immigrants remake our land, making it a better 
place, even as they become new Americans. Just think of how many 
recent, and expectant immigrants now serve in our Armed Forces, some of 
whom have made the ultimate sacrifice for our Nation in Iraq and 
Afghanistan. I am proud that New York is still an epicenter for 
immigrants. Just like my ancestors came over from Europe many decades 
ago, the new generations of people just like us are beginning to take 
root, making our country, our economy, and our culture that much 
stronger and diverse.
  So any bill that makes such dramatic changes to our immigration laws 
should be looked at carefully and considered judiciously. We must never 
bend in our determination to secure our borders and protect our Nation 
from harm. But nor can we forget what makes our Nation great. These 
debates and decisions must be reasoned debates, not take-it-or-leave-it 
ultimatums strategically devised for partisan political benefit.
  There are provisions in this bill, for instance, that will make it 
harder for people persecuted on the basis of their race, religion, 
national origin, or gender abroad to pursue asylum and the American 
dream.
  There are other provisions that would allow bail bondsmen to play 
judge and determine which immigrants are dangers to the community.
  These are major changes to our laws, and we have a system to debate, 
discuss and vote on such changes. No bill raising so many questions on 
issues of such fundamental importance should escape an honest debate in 
the Senate. I urge my Republican colleagues to rethink this strategy 
and allow the Senate to do its work the right way.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I am pleased that we are voting on the 
final passage of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for 
Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005.
  I commend my colleagues, especially Chairman Cochran, for working 
diligently to see that the Senate act quickly to address the needs of 
our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and emergency humanitarian needs 
worldwide. Americans everywhere are grateful for the efforts of our 
troops who fight on the front lines of the war on terror. They have 
made personal sacrifices for the liberty of all Americans, and we must 
support them by providing them with the very best equipment.
  The conference report includes much needed funding for humanitarian 
assistance in areas of the world devastated by famine, disaster and 
war.
  I am especially pleased that we have provided $90 million for 
international disaster and famine assistance for Darfur, Sudan and 
other African countries including Ethiopia, Liberia, Uganda, and the 
Democratic Republic of Congo. The situation in Sudan remains dire and 
there are several other countries in the region that will also greatly 
benefit from these funds.
  The conference report also includes necessary peacekeeping dollars 
that will address the security needs of millions of oppressed people. 
First, it provides $50 million in funding for the African Union mission 
in Darfur. It is the experience of many on the ground in Darfur that 
atrocities do not occur when AU troops are present, and this funding 
should facilitate an expansion of their mission. I thank my colleagues, 
Senators Corzine, DeWine, Durbin, Leahy and McConnell for their 
tireless work to get this money included in the bill. Security is 
paramount to ensuring an end to the violence that persists in Sudan, 
killing an estimated 15,000 people per month.
  Second, the conference report directs $680 million to general 
peacekeeping operations in other war-torn areas worldwide. The United 
States contributions to these missions are important to security and 
stability on a global level.
  I commend the inclusion of $5 million for assisting internally 
displaced persons in Afghanistan and $120.4 million for migration and 
refugee assistance for worldwide refugee protection and for the 
President to meet his goals for refugee admissions this year.
  While all of these earmarks will provide much needed protection and 
assistance to the world's poorest and oppressed people, I am extremely 
disappointed that the Darfur accountability amendment was stripped in 
conference. The amendment which was included by the Senate, would have 
placed targeted sanctions in the form of a travel ban and asset freezes 
on individuals who are committing war crimes and crimes against 
humanity in Darfur. It would also have directed the administration to 
pursue certain policies at the U.N., including multilateral sanctions 
and an arms embargo against Sudan as well as the establishment of a no-
fly zone over Darfur.
  I appreciate my Senate colleagues' support of this measure and look 
forward to working together to move this as stand-alone legislation in 
the near future. It is my hope that the administration will publicly 
address their concerns with this bill so that we may move swiftly to 
enact the very important provisions that will help alleviate the 
ongoing genocide.
  I am also disappointed that such sweeping immigration provisions were 
included in this bill without adequate debate or scrutiny. What 
concerned me most of all about the REAL ID bill is that it undermines 
America's moral authority by turning away legitimate asylum seekers 
fleeing tyranny. This language was added based on a claim that our 
asylum system can be used by terrorists to enter the country. This is 
not the case.
  However, I would like to thank my colleague Chairman Specter for 
working diligently to successfully soften some of the harsher language 
in the asylum provisions. As originally drafted, the REAL ID Act would 
have created significant and additional barriers for refugees fleeing 
persecution to obtain asylum.
  REAL ID would have greatly increased a refugees' burden of proof to 
establish their eligibility for asylum. At the whim of an immigration 
judge's discretion, refugees would be required to produce corroborative 
evidence of their claims of persecution or prove that the central 
intent of their persecutors was to punish them for their race, religion 
or political beliefs even in cases where the refugee's testimony was 
already credible.
  The facts are quite obvious: persecutors are not going to issue 
official documents explaining their actions. In addition, proving the 
mindset of those who carry out killings, torture and other abuse is 
next to impossible. Even if this were possible, those who flee a 
country often times don't have time to gather up the proper 
documentation they may later need in an American immigration court.
  The incorporated revisions would make an immigration judge take into 
account the totality of the circumstances when evaluating an applicants 
claim and would not be able to discard a claim for subjective reasons.
  I want to clarify that the triers of fact must consider all relevant 
factors and base any adverse credibility determinations on a 
consideration of all of those factors. The findings must be reasonable. 
It would not be reasonable to find a lack of credibility based on 
inconsistencies, inaccuracies or falsehoods that do not go to the heart 
of the asylum claim without other evidence that the asylum applicant is 
attempting to deceive the trier of fact.
  I also understand that when assessing demeanor, triers of fact must 
take into consideration the individual circumstances of the asylum 
applicant, such as his or her cultural background, educational 
background, gender, state of mind, history of trauma, and other 
factors.
  I remain concerned about how the asylum provisions will affect the 
adjudication of claims by children. Adjudicators cannot realistically 
hold these children to the same burden of proof and standards of 
persuasion as adult asylum-seekers. For example, children

[[Page 9026]]

reasonably cannot be expected to pinpoint a central motive of 
persecution and provide corroborating evidence of their persecution.
  I conclude by pointing out that applications for asylum have fallen 
from 140,000 to just over 30,000 per year, and the numbers of those who 
are actually granted asylum has fallen to about 10,000 per year. 
Individuals fleeing persecution must already meet a high burden of 
proof and undergo intensive security measures to obtain asylum. While I 
recognize the importance of security in the post-9/11 environment, I am 
committed to ensuring legitimate asylum-seekers a haven without 
imposing unrealistic barriers.
  In addition to the asylum revisions, I am extremely pleased that we 
were able to secure the repeal of the arbitrary 1,000 annual cap placed 
on refugees fleeing coercive population control. This, along with the 
lifting of the asylum adjustment cap, will enable those who have fled 
persecution, including forced abortions, to become legal permanent 
residents and enjoy the security and benefits that go along with that 
status.
  The importance of the supplemental bill is not to be understated. Our 
troops are valiantly protecting human freedoms and deserve our support. 
The humanitarian crises around the world resulting from natural 
disasters such as the tsunami, and resulting from human rights 
atrocities such as genocide, cannot be ignored by a country such as 
ours. I thank my colleagues for working to get this bill to the 
President.


                       Iraq Security Forces Fund

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, an important component of this $82 billion 
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations conference agreement is the $5.7 
billion appropriated for the Iraq Security Forces Fund. I commend 
Senators Stevens and Inouye, the chairman and ranking member of the 
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, for their efforts in securing the 
full budget request for this important effort. Security must be a high 
priority in Iraq. The sooner the Iraqis develop their own capacity to 
stabilize and secure their country, the sooner our men and women in 
uniform can come home to their families.
  An important part of security in Iraq involves communications 
systems. The deployment of an Advanced First Responders Network, AFRN, 
throughout Iraq will begin to address the current lack of mission-
critical public-safety communications capabilities. The AFRN system, 
when deployed throughout Iraq, will allow for focused coordination of 
security planning and execution, rapid data collection and analysis of 
changing security threats, rapid coordination and deployment of 
security assets to address threats, effective planning to reduce/
prevent future security threats, and a more secure environment that 
will foster democracy and economic development.
  The AFRN infrastructure in Iraq has been designed to address needs 
throughout the country, including border regions and pipelines. 
However, additional funding is needed to meet this objective.
  Mr. President, I would like to inquire of the chairman and the 
ranking member, Senators Stevens and Inouye, whether continued funding 
of the AFRN could be a qualified activity within the $5.7 billion 
included in the conference agreement for the Iraq Security Forces Fund?
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for 
this question. Yes, I believe that funding for the AFRN could be an 
eligible activity within the funding we are providing in the Iraq 
Security Forces Fund. I cannot guarantee the Senator any particular 
level of funding will be provided, but I do agree with him that 
continued work on the AFRN is important.
  Mr. INOUYE. I concur fully with the chairman.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank Senators Stevens and Inouye for their insight 
into this matter.


                          australian nationals

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, will the Senate Majority Leader yield for a 
question?
  Mr. FRIST. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. KYL. I thank the distinguished Senate Majority Leader. I am 
pleased to see that the Frist Amendment, adopted by the Senate during 
consideration of the supplemental appropriations bill, is included in 
this conference report. The Frist Amendment creates a new E-3 visa sub-
classification for Australian nationals. I would be grateful if Senator 
Frist would clarify a couple of technical points relating to his 
amendment. It is my understanding that the E-3 visa would not be 
limited to employment that is directly related to international trade 
and investment, as are the E-1 and E-2 visas. Could the Senator confirm 
that this is his intention?
  Mr. FRIST. I thank Senator Kyl for his question. He is correct in his 
understanding that the E-3 visa would not be limited to employment that 
is directly related to international trade and investment. To qualify 
for an E-3 visa, an Australian national must be seeking employment in a 
``specialty occupation,'' as that term is defined in the Immigration 
and Nationality Act, and the U.S. employer must have obtained a 
certified labor attestation from the Department of Labor. In other 
respects, such as visa application procedures, periods of admission, 
dependent admissions, and spousal work authorizations, the rules 
applicable to the new E-3 visa will be the same as for other E visa 
holders currently. Also, Australian nationals will continue to have 
access to all existing categories of visas to which they are currently 
entitled.
  Mr. KYL. I thank the Senate Majority Leader for these few points of 
clarification.
  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I rise today in support of this urgently 
needed funding for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines fighting 
around the world. Specifically, I would like to thank my colleague and 
friend from Mississippi, the distinguished chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee, Senator Cochran, for his commitment to our 
Nation's Armed Forces.
  I particularly want to express my support for the provision dealing 
with DD(X) destroyers. This bill includes a critical provision to 
prohibit the use of funds by the Navy in conducting a ``one shipyard'' 
acquisition strategy to procure next-generation DD(X) destroyers.
  The Navy serves not only as a central pillar of our Nation's military 
strategy, but also as a symbol of American strength abroad. It is 
crucial that not only do we have the most capable fleet, but also that 
we have sufficient numbers of ships . . . and shipbuilders . . . to 
meet our national security requirements.
  Unfortunately, the Navy has proposed to radically change the 
acquisition strategy for DD(X) destroyers in such a manner as to ensure 
that there is only one shipyard involved in major surface combatant 
production. If implemented, the Navy's ill-advised proposal to go 
forward with a ``one shipyard'' competition for DD(X) between General 
Dynamics' Bath Iron Works in Bath, ME, and Northrop Grumman Ship 
Systems in Pascagoula, MS, would jeopardize our national security and 
our industrial capacity.
  We need to move forward with DD(X) at both shipyards, as originally 
planned. Holding a competition will inevitably delay DD(X) acquisition 
and increase the costs to taxpayers.
  The fleet needs the capabilities of a DD(X) destroyer that will 
provide sustained, offensive, and precise firepower at long ranges to 
support forces ashore and to conduct independent attacks against land 
targets. These systems will provide a naval or joint task force 
commander with the multimission flexibility to destroy a wide variety 
of land targets while simultaneously countering maritime threats.
  Moreover, DD(X) will take advantage of advanced stealth technologies, 
which will render it significantly less detectable and more survivable 
to enemy attack than the current class of ships. It will also operate 
with significantly smaller crews than current destroyers.
  Conducting a competition for these ships, or implementing a ``one 
shipyard'' acquisition strategy further exacerbates the decline in 
America's

[[Page 9027]]

shipbuilding employment that has shrunk by an overwhelming 75 percent 
since the late 1980s.
  This supplemental appropriations bill continues to build upon the 
work many of my colleagues and I during the past several months to 
thwart the Navy's attempt to have only one shipyard capable of building 
DD(X)s. On March 1, I joined 19 of my Senate colleagues, in concert 
with Senator Lott, to send a letter to President Bush expressing our 
strong opposition to any ``winner take all'' competition for DD(X).
  We all agreed that any instability or delay in the DD(X) program at 
this time could lead to the permanent exodus of skilled men and women 
from the last remaining shipyards that produce our complex surface 
combatants. Construction of surface combatants at a single shipyard 
would affect the Navy's ability to keep costs lower in the long term.
  The recently-passed Senate budget resolution included a sense of the 
Senate on the acquisition DD(X) that correctly emphasized that the 
national security of the United States is best served by a competitive 
industrial base consisting of at least two shipyards capable of 
constructing major surface combatants.
  The Congress has spoken very loudly, and very clearly on this rapid 
change in direction. It is in our national interest to have two major 
surface combatant shipyards. This appropriations bill is good for the 
Navy, good for our shipbuilders, and good for our Nation.
  I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and funding for our 
men and women in uniform serving around the world.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I will vote to support the conference 
report on H.R. 1268, the fiscal year 2005 Supplemental Appropriations 
bill, although I have serious reservations about the process that was 
used to attach the REAL ID Act to legislation urgently needed to ensure 
our troops are adequately funded.
  I am voting for this legislation because it provides needed support 
to our troops in combat, additional border patrol agents to secure our 
porous frontiers, vital relief to areas affected by the recent tsunami 
in the Indian Ocean, and important disaster relief here at home.
  My colleagues have noted that this legislation funds important needs 
for our military, from additional up-armored humvees to increased death 
benefits for those who have lost their lives in service to our Nation 
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  I agree with my colleagues that it is vital that we get these 
resources to our men and women in uniform without delay.
  However, I have serious concerns about the process by which 
controversial immigration provisions were attached to the bill.
  And I want to again express my opposition to the inclusion of the 
REAL ID Act--despite the negotiated changes during conference--because 
an emergency supplemental is not the place for the Congress to enact 
substantive immigration provisions.
  The REAL ID provisions included in this legislation will bring about 
significant legal and policy changes in the areas of asylum law, 
judicial review, deportation of individuals alleged links to terrorist 
activities, driver's licenses and the border fence.
  And while I recognize that there were modifications to the REAL ID 
Act during conference--including provisions relating to bounty 
hunters--we are still talking major changes to our immigration laws and 
I don't believe the Senate was given adequate opportunity to review, 
consider, debate and amend these issues.
  Any voices of opposition to the REAL ID Act were all but silenced. I 
was a member of the conference committee, but I was not able to see the 
final language until the bill was ready to be filed and it was too late 
to do anything. Essentially, the minority was shut out of the 
conference negotiations on this bill.
  The REAL ID Act wasn't the only immigration language added to this 
bill in which the Democrats were shut out.
  For instance, the Republican leadership added language at the 
eleventh hour, postcloture, which creates a new temporary worker 
program for 10,500 Australian workers.
  So each year now we will see an influx of 10,500 Australian workers, 
along with their families. Assuming that each of these professional 
workers brings their spouse and child, in reality we could be seeing an 
increase of 31,500 individuals each year--in addition to the other 
categories of professional workers, such as H-1B and L-1 workers.
  At what point do we stop creating special carve outs for different 
groups of people or different countries? And after Australia, what 
country is going to come to us and ask for special exceptions to our 
immigration laws?
  I am pleased that the conference committee came to a reasonable 
compromise on the issue of funding additional Border Patrol agents. The 
conference report makes available $635 million to address understaffing 
at our borders.
  While this is a reduction from the amount provided by the Senate, it 
will provide for 500 new Border Patrol agents, 50 additional 
Immigration and Customs enforcement investigators, 168 detentions 
officers, as well as needed support staff and construction of 
additional detention space.
  This is a good start toward meeting the goals of the Intelligence 
Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which authorizes the hiring of 
2,000 new Border Patrol agents. That goal was developed in concert with 
the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues on the Homeland Security 
Appropriations Subcommittee to ensure that next year we continue to 
hire additional agents to secure our borders. Unfortunately, President 
Bush's budget for fiscal year 2006 only provides for 210 additional 
agents, which is simply not enough.
  I would like to briefly comment on the military construction portion 
of this legislation. The House and Senate conferees included $1.128 
billion to support military construction projects worldwide.
  This includes $250 million for projects requested by the Army in 
Alaska, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, New York, North Carolina, and Texas, 
to support Army modernization.
  The bill also includes $647 million for the Army to support the 
global war on terror--$38.5 million for projects in Afghanistan, $40.4 
million for a prison and security fence in Cuba, $479 million for 
projects in Iraq, and an additional $39 million for the design of these 
projects.
  In addition, there is $140 million included in the bill to support 
the Marine Corps Force Structure Review Group to alleviate the overall 
stress on the Marine Corps produced by deployments related to the 
global war on terrorism. These projects are located in California, 
North Carolina, and Djibouti.
  The bill includes $141 million to support Air Force projects in 
Central Command--$31 million for Afghanistan, $58 million for projects 
in Iraq, $1.4 million for the United Arab Emirates, $42.5 million for 
Uzbekistan, and an additional $8 million for the design of these 
projects.
  Let me turn to an issue that is of particular importance to me and to 
my State--and that is preventing and fighting wildfires that have 
struck the West with increasing regularity and intensity in recent 
years.
  As many of my colleagues know, southern California was hit this 
winter with unusually heavy rain storms that caused severe flooding--at 
this point it is the second wettest winter in Los Angeles since records 
have been kept.
  These storms dumped 70 to 90 inches of rain in parts of southern 
California that include several national forests, causing flooding, 
debris flows, and mudslides which destroyed or damaged more than 90 
percent of the roads in four National Forests: Angeles National Forest; 
Cleveland National Forest; Los Padres National Forest; and San 
Bernardino National Forest.
  The conference report provides $24.39 million in capital improvement 
and maintenance funding to the Forest Service to repair those roads. 
This

[[Page 9028]]

funding will make it possible to repair roads that are vital to 
firefighting efforts for thousands of acres in these forests.
  We all know about the disastrous wildfires that burned in southern 
California in 2003. Fires burned 739,597 acres, destroyed 3,631 homes, 
and killed 24 people, according to the California Department of 
Forestry.
  San Bernardino Forest Supervisor Gene Zimmerman told my staff that he 
has never seen the grass grow as high as it has this year, and it is 
starting to turn brown--which means it could burn later this year.
  Here is the biggest difference from 2003: right now, firefighters 
cannot get in to the forests to contain fires. The Forest Service 
estimates that 2.3 million acres of National Forest System lands are 
inaccessible to ground-based fire vehicles.
  The Forest Service tells me that they need to begin work immediately 
on roads to allow access for the 2005 fire season. They already have 
contractors working and will add to their contracts as funding is 
available. They have done the necessary damage assessments to enable 
immediate start up of work.
  With the $24 million in this conference report, the Forest Service 
can open the majority of roads to accommodate fire apparatus by July 
and August, which is still the early part of this year's fire season.
  I thank Chairman Cochran, Senator Byrd, Interior Subcommittee 
Chairman Burns and Senator Dorgan, as well as their able staffs for 
helping to secure this funding in the Senate bill.
  I also thank House Chairman Lewis for working with us in the 
conference committee on an issue that is crucial to preventing a repeat 
of the devastating fires our State suffered in 2003.
  I want to briefly highlight one last issue that is important to me, 
and I believe to the prospects for peace in the Middle East.
  This conference report includes a provision that I offered to provide 
legal authority for a Federal agency, the Overseas Private Investment 
Corporation, OPIC, to receive $10 million to help bolster economic and 
infrastructure development in the Gaza Strip.
  OPIC is combining forces with private organizations to build a $250 
million loan fund that would be aimed at microfinance, small business, 
corporate and mortgage lending to deserving businesses, firms and 
entities in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
  A meeting is being held this coming week in London among the various 
loan fund participants to continue sorting out appropriate financial 
and legal mechanisms for distributing these funds.
  As the group moves forward, this $10 million subsidy will play a 
crucial role in extending OPIC political risk guarantees for loans to 
deserving Palestinian business recipients and I was pleased to assist 
in this process.
  On a larger scale, as we begin the process of Gaza disengagement, we 
need to help provide the Palestinians with real economic hope--not 
continued frustration about the lack of jobs and exports.
  The lack of agreed mechanisms to coordinate disengagement, developing 
an agreed concept on how Palestinian security forces will take over 
areas evacuated by Israeli defense forces, and permitting greater 
freedom of movement, between Gaza and the West Bank, to assist with 
rehabilitation efforts are just a few areas of concern.
  I hope the $150 million provided by this conference report will 
contribute to framing key security and economic arrangements that allow 
Gaza disengagement to occur peacefully and not violently.
  Although I am troubled by the inclusion of the REAL ID Act in this 
bill, the bottom line is that it provides necessary funding to our 
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as relief to countries struck 
by the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean and disasters here at home. It may 
not be perfect, but it gives vital financial support to those who badly 
need it.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I will vote in favor of the fiscal year 
2005 Emergency Supplemental Appropriations conference report. This 
conference report contains important funding that gives our troops in 
Afghanistan and Iraq the equipment and support they need. It also 
provides additional resources to help train new Iraqi security forces 
that will help speed the return of our servicemen and women.
  In March, I traveled to Iraq to witness firsthand our military 
operations. There is no doubt that the insurgency is strong and that 
our continuing presence in Iraq, without even a goal for leaving, is 
fueling it.
  Therefore, our troops are in grave danger every day, as evidenced by 
the tragic number of dead and wounded. Since the beginning of the Iraq 
War, we have suffered more than 1,600 deaths and more than 12,000 
wounded.
  My trip to Iraq confirmed my fears that not enough is being done to 
protect our soldiers from the threat of roadside bombs. Roadside bombs 
are one of the leading causes of death in Iraq and are responsible for 
70 percent of those personnel killed or wounded. That is why I am glad 
that the conference report provides $60 million to rapidly field 
electronic jammers that help prevent the detonation of roadside bombs. 
This is consistent with the Boxer amendment that was adopted on the 
floor during the Senate's consideration of the bill.
  I am also pleased that the conference report provides $150 million in 
additional funding for up-armored Humvees. While this is not as much as 
provided by the Bayh amendment, it is still a step in the right 
direction.
  I will vote for this conference report, but I do so with serious 
reservations about the lack of an exit strategy in Iraq and with 
additional reservations about the way the REAL ID Act was attached to 
this legislation.
  The REAL ID Act contains sweeping changes to our immigration laws. 
These provisions were not included in the President's supplemental 
appropriations request, nor were they included in the Senate version of 
the bill that was approved last month.
  But at the insistence of the Republican leadership in the House, this 
legislation was attached to the House version of the emergency 
supplemental bill and then rammed through conference without the 
participation of Democrats. The REAL ID Act will become law without 
discussion or debate in the Senate.
  The REAL ID Act contains a provision that would require states to 
collect documents proving the date of birth, social security number, 
principal address, and lawful immigration status for any applicant 
seeking a driver's license or identification card that would be 
recognized by the Federal government. States would be required to keep 
these documents on hand for a minimum of 7 years, maintain this 
information on a database, and allow electronic access to all other 
states.
  States are understandably concerned that they do not have the 
capability to meet this mandate. Privacy concerns have also been 
raised.
  Unfortunately, we have not had the ability to fully investigate the 
privacy implications and other issues related to this provision. My 
State of California has worked for 3 years trying to find a workable 
solution to this issue. But in the Senate, the REAL ID Act did not even 
warrant a hearing. This is why the National Governors Association, the 
National Council of State Legislatures, and the American Association of 
Motor Vehicle Administrators all oppose this legislation.
  The REAL ID Act also contains a troubling provision that allows the 
Secretary of Homeland Security to waive all legal requirements--
including environmental laws--in order to build security fences along 
U.S. borders. Security fences can be built without waiving 
environmental laws.
  So, while I will vote for this bill because it helps our brave and 
courageous troops, I am deeply distressed at the way Democrats were 
left out of all the immigration discussions.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I am dismayed that nearly all of the 
provisions of the REAL ID Act have been included in this conference 
report after closed-door negotiations between House and

[[Page 9029]]

Senate Republicans. Democratic conferees were excluded from these 
negotiations. Indeed, my staff specifically asked the conferees for the 
majority to be included in negotiations on these far-reaching 
provisions--which have never received Judiciary Committee 
consideration--but our request was ignored.
  I oppose the inclusion of these provisions for a number of reasons. 
First and foremost, this is not the way we should be legislating 
comprehensive changes to our immigration laws. The Judiciary Committee 
never considered them. The Senate never voted on them when the 
supplemental appropriations bill was being debated. Indeed, Senator 
Isakson offered an amendment that included the text of REAL ID but then 
withdrew it, reportedly under pressure from his own leadership. Many of 
us believed the Senate would vote down the Isakson amendment, 
especially considering that six Republican Senators had joined six 
Democratic Senators in writing to the majority leader to oppose 
including REAL ID in the supplemental appropriations bill.
  Second, I am concerned that the REAL ID Act will cause great hardship 
for asylum seekers. In the guise of preventing terrorists from 
obtaining asylum--which is forbidden under current law--this conference 
report raises the standard of proof for all asylum seekers. The REAL ID 
Act's asylum provisions are opposed by a wide variety of religious 
organizations from across the political spectrum, as well as advocates 
for refugees and asylees. The United States Conference of Catholic 
Bishops has said that the asylum provisions in REAL ID would 
``eviscerate the protection of asylum, thus preventing victims of 
persecution from receiving safe haven in the United States.''
  Third, this conference report includes the REAL ID Act's breathtaking 
waiver of Federal law. The Secretary of Homeland Security will now be 
empowered to waive any and all laws that may get in the way of the 
construction of fences or barriers at any United States border. The 
Secretary already has broad authority in this area, and to further 
increase it demonstrates a lack of concern both with environmental 
protection and the rule of law.
  Fourth, the conference report repeals the minimum Federal standards 
for driver's licenses that Congress passed only last December in the 
intelligence reform bill, in response to the recommendations of the 9/
11 Commission. The Bush administration said that it preferred the 
approach taken in the conference report to the approach favored by the 
House, which is contained in the REAL ID Act. The House approach, now 
included in this conference report, replaces the newly enacted minimum 
standards with Federal mandates that I fear will be unworkable. The 
administration and the States have already devoted substantial energy 
to implementing the existing standards, and this conference report may 
represent a step backwards in our security.
  These new provisions will endanger the lives of victims of domestic 
violence, including U.S. citizens. Many States currently allow victims 
of abuse--who frequently are hiding from their abusers--to obtain 
driver's licenses that do not list their address. This conference 
report will require all licenses to bear the recipient's address; 
unfortunately, it contains no exception for victims of domestic abuse 
or stalking. If a victim of domestic abuse or stalking is forced to 
disclose her physical residence in order to get a Federally-approved 
driver's license, she risks the possibility that she and her children 
will be tracked down by their abuser. For women and children fleeing 
domestic abuse or stalking, the option to use an alternate address is 
not a matter of convenience or preference; it can be a matter of life 
or death. We must fix this residential address requirement when we 
reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act later this year by creating 
an exemption for victims of domestic abuse or stalking.
  Fifth, the conference report would eliminate habeas corpus review for 
aliens who have received removal orders. We have not taken such a step 
in this country for more than a century, but we are taking it now, 
without the Senate even considering the measure.
  Overall, the REAL ID provisions in this conference report need a much 
wider airing and consideration before enactment. Unfortunately, 
Republican conferees agreed to exclude the Democrats from consideration 
of these proposals and a group of Senate and House appropriators have 
agreed to change our immigration laws in profound ways.
  On a much more favorable note, I am pleased that the conference 
report included, with minor modifications, the Senate-passed provision 
to provide relief to the small and seasonal businesses across our 
nation that rely on temporary foreign workers who come here on H-2B 
visas. I cosponsored the Senate amendment, offered by Senator Mikulski, 
to make additional visas available for aliens who wish to perform 
seasonal work in the United States. For the second year in a row, the 
statutory cap on such H-2B visas was met before businesses that need 
additional summer employees were even eligible to apply for visas. This 
has hurt businesses across the country, and this amendment will provide 
needed relief.
  In Vermont, the main users of these visas are hotels, inns and 
resorts that have a busy summer season. I have heard from dozens of 
businesses in Vermont over the past year that have struggled mightily 
to manage without temporary foreign labor. I know that the Lake 
Champlain Chamber of Commerce, the Vermont Lodging & Restaurant 
Association and many small businesses in Vermont are vitally concerned 
and expect that similar associations and businesses in other States 
are, as well.
  Indeed, a wide range of industries use these visas in other States. I 
imagine that nearly all Senators have heard from a constituent who has 
been harmed by the sudden shortage of H-2B visas, and fear that they 
will go out of business if Congress does not act to make more visas 
available.
  The conference report does not raise the cap on the program, but 
rather allows those who had entered the U.S. in previous years through 
the H-2B program to return. These are, by definition, people who came 
to the U.S. legally and returned to their own countries as the law 
requires. The amendment also addresses the concerns some members have 
expressed about fraud.
  I have been working to solve this crisis for more than a year. I 
joined last year with a substantial bipartisan coalition in introducing 
S.2252, the Save Summer Act of 2004. Senator Kennedy was the lead 
sponsor of the bill, which had 18 cosponsors, including 8 Republicans. 
The bill would have added 40,000 visas for the current fiscal year, 
providing relief to those summer-oriented businesses that had never 
even had the opportunity to apply for visas. Unfortunately, that bill 
was opposed by a number of Republican Senators and never received a 
vote. Our constituents suffered the consequences, and I am gratified 
that we are prepared to provide relief.
  Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, thousands of men and women are proudly 
serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the majority will return home to 
their loved ones, more than 1,700 have paid the ultimate sacrifice to 
their country, and nearly 13,000 have been wounded in action. Even 
after Iraq's historic elections in January, violence continues on a 
daily basis with no end in sight to the insurgency.
  Today, the Senate is preparing to approve another massive 
supplemental appropriations request from the Bush administration to 
fund ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most recent 
request of $82 billion makes it the second largest supplemental 
appropriations measure Congress has ever passed and brings the total 
amount of appropriated funds to $275 billion.
  I support this supplemental request because I firmly believe that 
Congress has an obligation to provide our troops with all the resources 
they need to complete their mission. While I am deeply troubled by the 
Bush administration's continued practice of funding our efforts in Iraq 
and Afghanistan

[[Page 9030]]

through supplemental appropriations requests rather than the normal 
annual appropriations process, the bill contains too many important 
resources for our troops not to support it.
  This bill includes additional funding above the President's request 
for essential items such as up-armored Army Humvees, add-on vehicle 
armor kits, night vision equipment, and radio jammers that disrupt 
remote-controlled bombs used by Iraqi insurgents. In addition, Congress 
recognizes the extraordinary sacrifices our soldiers are making in 
defense of freedom by increasing the amount of life insurance 
servicemembers can purchase, as well as the one-time death gratuity a 
soldier's surviving family members receives.
  Having said that, I have deep concerns about this most recent 
supplemental request. For over 2 years, American soldiers have been 
shouldering most of the peace-keeping burden in Iraq. While no one 
dismisses the contributions being made by coalition members, once 
again, I ask President Bush to reach out to our allies so that our 
efforts in Iraq are truly an international effort. The entire world has 
much to gain by a secure and peaceful Iraq, and other nations should do 
their fair share because we ask even more of our brave men and women in 
uniform.
  While I am supportive of quick action on funding for U.S. troops, I 
must express my strong opposition to the way the Republican leadership 
is forcing approval of far-reaching driver license legislation as part 
of this bill. There has been no real opportunity for debate of the 
``REAL ID'' amendment. Its inclusion in this must-pass bill subverts 
the work of the Regulatory Negotiation Advisory Committee that was 
established in last year's intelligence overhaul bill to provide a 
thoughtful and carefully crafted approach to driver's license 
legislation. Because we are now faced with a conference report on 
emergency funding, no further amendments will be permitted and Senators 
must vote yes or no on the entire package.
  The REAL ID amendment will saddle the States with a $500 million 
unfunded mandate over the next 5 years, while at the same time, 
complicating the issuing and re-issuing of drivers licenses. State 
employees will be required to assume the duties of the Federal 
Immigration and Naturalization Service at a time when States are 
already reeling from Federal cuts in Medicaid, education, and community 
development funding. With no opportunity for amendments or expert 
testimony, Congress is being required to establish what amounts to a 
national ID card. While the goal of establishing more secure driver's 
licenses in the post-9/11 world is vitally important, it should be the 
responsibility of the Advisory Committee. Forcing this ill-considered 
amendment past Congress on the back of an unrelated bill that provides 
needed funds for our troops is wrong and a disservice to the American 
people.
  I am uncomfortable conducting Senate business in this manner, 
particularly when it comes to issues that affect the security of our 
personal identity. These provisions were attached to a vital 
appropriations bill before authorizing Senate committees of 
jurisdiction had an opportunity to properly scrutinize the content, 
conduct hearings, and pose questions to administration officials and 
other interested individuals. Even more astounding, Democrats were not 
included in negotiations to determine the immigration provisions of 
this bill.
  On matters as important as immigration reform and homeland security, 
it is misguided and short-sighted to pass legislation in this ad hoc 
fashion. Forcing Senators to support funding for our troops by voting 
in favor of legislation they may oppose is not in the best interest of 
our country.
  I have deep reservations about some of the provisions included in 
this bill, and I hope they can be reconsidered as measures apart from 
this supplemental bill. However, I will vote in favor of providing 
additional funds for our troops. Our first priority must be to ensure 
our troops have the necessary tools to finish their mission in Iraq and 
Afghanistan as swiftly and as safely as possible.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today to address the provisions of 
the conference report to H.R. 1268, the Iraq and Afghanistan Emergency 
Supplemental Appropriations Act, concerning small business contracting 
at the Department of Energy.
  As chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and 
Entrepreneurship, I am concerned that, although the conference report 
did not contain a substantive change to the Small Business Act's prime 
contracts goaling requirements, it does contain a provision addressing 
small business contracting. I remain deeply disappointed that H.R. 
1268, an emergency appropriations measure, includes targeted language 
dealing with the Department of Energy's small business contracting. 
Numerous groups and individuals, including the SBA Administrator and 
the SBA Chief Counsel for Advocacy, wrote to Congress in opposition to 
substantive changes to small business prime contracting goals.
  As a result of inclusion of this provision, the Congressional small 
business committees prepared a joint statement to be submitted in both 
the House and the Senate. Chairman Manzullo of the House Small Business 
already filed this Statement in the House prior to the vote on the 
conference report for H.R. 1268. I ask unanimous consent to have 
printed in the Record the following statement.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Joint Statement Concerning Small Business Contracting Provisions in 
                               H.R. 1268

 (By Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Chair of the Senate Committee on Small 
  Business and Entrepreneurship, and Congressman Donald R. Manzullo, 
              Chairman, House Committee on Small Business)

       Section 6022 of H.R. 1268, as adopted in the Conference 
     Report, H. Rep. 109-72, contains certain provisions 
     concerning small business contracting at the Department of 
     Energy. These provisions were inserted as a substitute for 
     Section 6023 of the Senate version of H.R. 1268. Section 
     6023, among other things sought to amend the Small Business 
     Act to authorize counting of small business subcontracts at 
     the Department of Energy's large prime contractors for 
     purposes of reporting small business prime contracting 
     results. Because the substitute language was not adopted by 
     Congress through regular legislative proceedings in the 
     Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and 
     the House Committee on Small Business but was adopted anew 
     during the House-Senate conference, the committees of 
     jurisdiction take this opportunity to provide guidance 
     generally provided through their reports to Senators and 
     Representatives prior to their vote on the Conference Report, 
     and to affected Federal agencies prior to their 
     implementation of the Conference Report if adopted.
       In subsections 6022 (a) and (b), the language chosen to 
     replace Section 6023 in the Conference Report directs the 
     Department of Energy and the Small Business Administration to 
     enter into a Memorandum of Understanding for reporting small 
     business prime contracts and subcontracts at the Department 
     of Energy. This replacement language does not change the 
     Small Business Act's clear distinction between prime 
     contracts and subcontracts, does not amend the statutory 
     small business prime contracting goal requirements which are 
     binding on the Department of Energy, and does not obviate 
     Congressional and regulatory policies against contract 
     bundling. This language does not repeal the President's 
     Executive Order 13360 directing the Department of Energy to 
     comply with its separate statutory prime contracting and 
     subcontracting goals for awards to small businesses owned by 
     service-disabled veterans. Any interpretation to the contrary 
     would be unreasonable and contrary to Congressional intent.
       In subsection 6022(c), the replacement language mandates a 
     study of changes to management prime contracts at the 
     Department of Energy to encourage small business prime 
     contracting opportunities. The object of the study is to 
     examine the feasibility of establishing a procurement agency 
     relationship between the management prime contractors and the 
     Department of Energy in accordance with the requirements of 
     Federal procurement laws, Federal procurement regulations, 
     the ``Federal norm'' of government contracting as recognized 
     by the Comptroller General, and applicable judicial precedent 
     such as U.S. West Communications, Inc. v. United States, 940 
     F.2d 622 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
       Finally, in subsection 6022(d), the replacement language 
     imposes certain requirements upon the Department of Energy 
     concerning break-outs of services from large prime contracts 
     for awards to small businesses. First, the Secretary of 
     Energy is required to consider whether services performed 
     have been

[[Page 9031]]

     previously provided by a small business concern. This 
     requirement is for acquisition planning purposes only, and 
     shall not be construed as imposing a restriction of any kind 
     on the ability of the Department of Energy to break out its 
     large prime contracts for award to small businesses. Congress 
     recognizes that most of work currently contracted by the 
     Department of Energy to its large prime contractors has never 
     been historically performed by small businesses. However, 
     this does not waive the application of the Small Business 
     Act, the President's Executive Order 13360, or the 
     President's initiative against contract bundling to the 
     Department of Energy. Second, the Secretary of Energy is 
     required to consider whether small business concerns are 
     capable of performing under the contracts which are broken 
     out for award. This requirement is simply a restatement of 
     current statutory and regulatory requirements on contractor 
     responsibility. Subsection (d)(2) directs the Secretary of 
     Energy is required to--impose certain subcontracting 
     requirements. As the text plainly indicates, this provision 
     applies solely to small business prime contracts which were 
     formerly small business subcontracts for services.

  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise to discuss a few of my thoughts 
regarding the Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental appropriations bill that 
the Senate is expected to pass today. In particular, I wanted to 
discuss the bill's important provisions that would improve the H-2B 
visa program and provide timely relief for seasonal businesses in my 
State and across the country.
  First, let me express my appreciation to my dear friend from 
Maryland, Senator Mikulski, who has been a tireless fighter for the 
seasonal employers in her State. She and I have worked together on this 
issue for several months, and I was proud to be the lead cosponsor of 
S. 352, the ``Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act of 2005.'' Our 
offices worked closely to draft this legislation, which was 
incorporated into the Iraq/Afghanistan supplemental appropriations bill 
when the Senate overwhelmingly approved Senator Mikulski's H-2B 
amendment on April 19, 2005 by a vote of 94-6. I am pleased that this 
legislation was also accepted in conference and will soon become law.
  With the summer season soon upon us, I believe that the H-2B problem 
needs timely relief that is fair to all seasonal employers, and the 
Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act will do exactly this. As 
most of us know, the 66,000 cap on H-2B visas was reached in early 
January; therefore, shutting out businesses that rely on H-2B workers 
in the spring and summer months. This seasonal inequity is 
unjustifiable, and therefore I am pleased that the H-2B provisions 
before us will divide the 66,000 cap so that 33,000 visas will be 
available for the first half of the fiscal year and the other 33,000 
visas will be available for the second half of the fiscal year.
  To provide timely and meaningful relief, the Save Our Small and 
Seasonal Businesses Act will also temporarily exempt returning H-2B 
workers from the statutory cap. For fiscal years 2005 and 2006, H-2B 
workers who had worked in the U.S. under an H-2B visa during the past 
three fiscal years will qualify for this exemption and will not be 
counted against the cap. Since the cap has already been hit for fiscal 
year 2005, the H-2B provisions in the supplemental appropriations bill 
will establish a ``look back''--namely, they allow the Department of 
Homeland Security to estimate how many of the H-2B visas already issued 
for this fiscal year were given to returning workers. This is necessary 
to ensure that the Department can swiftly apply the exemption for 
fiscal year 2005 and free up visas under the cap for new H-2B workers 
for this summer season.
  In addition, the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act will 
allow the Department of Homeland Security to waive the Administrative 
Procedure Act to avoid having to issue rules and go through other 
hurdles to implement the H-2B provisions before us. This is intended to 
give the Department the ability to swiftly accept H-2B petitions and 
implement the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act in a timely 
manner so that businesses can employ H-2B workers this summer.
  As I stated earlier, I am pleased that Congress has finally acted to 
improve the H-2B program and provide timely relief for small and 
seasonal businesses. In my State, the H-2B program is of special 
concern to the tourist and logging industries, which are both important 
to the New Hampshire economy. For instance, in 2004 alone, New 
Hampshire's tourism industry generated $4 billion in revenues and 
nearly $140 million in rooms and meals taxes, which makes up about 25 
percent of the State's total revenue stream. For a number of seasonal 
employers in my State, the short-term hiring needs and the nature of 
their businesses make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to 
fully staff their positions with U.S. workers. H-2B workers therefore 
are the only lawful option to fulfill labor shortages when U.S. workers 
are not available.
  The Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act will help ensure that 
these seasonal employers can stay in business and use a program that 
has safeguards for U.S. workers. Moreover, as we try to reign in 
illegal immigration and bolster respect for our laws, I believe that 
Congress has shown wise judgment by passing this legislation. In 
addition to strengthening anti-fraud protections, these H-2B reforms 
will reward employers that follow the rules and will encourage the 
lawful hiring of temporary workers instead of the hiring of illegal 
aliens.
  Some provisions of the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act are 
only temporary in nature and are intended to be a short-term fix. I 
recognize that significantly more work must be done to improve our 
immigration policies over the long term, including our guest worker 
programs. We can no longer accept having immigration laws that fail to 
bring about order along our borders and other points of entry or are 
ignored altogether. As such, Congress must re-double its efforts to 
pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation, and I look forward 
to working with my colleagues on this long needed effort.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Cochran for his 
leadership on this important bill for our country, as well as ranking 
member Byrd.
  I rise in support of H.R. 1268. I support it because it is a symbol 
of our compact with our troops and their families. I support it because 
it sends a signal of hope to other emerging democracies. And I support 
it despite some baffling decisions taken in the conference committee to 
strike key proposals to support our troops and their families.
  Insurgent attacks in Iraq are on the rise. There were 45 per day in 
March, 60 per day in April, and the rate of attacks this month is 
topping that number. While down from the highs of the preelection 
violence, this spike does not suggest a weakened or retreating 
insurgency. Instead, it suggests a greater urgency is needed for even 
greater support for our troops.
  Last month the Washington Post quoted an unnamed American official in 
our embassy in Baghdad as saying:

       My strong sense is that a lot of political momentum that 
     was generated out of the successful election, which was sort 
     of like a punch in the gut to the insurgents, has worn off.

  In Colorado, we have seen Army units mobilizing for their second and 
third tours in Iraq; this nearly 2 years after we were assured that the 
mission there had been accomplished. So it is time that we get this 
assistance to our troops and to their families.
  This bill includes $75.9 billion for the Department of Defense and an 
additional $450 million for increased border security. Those efforts 
cannot wait any longer. After having been needlessly delayed by the 
inclusion of extraneous provisions in the House of Representatives, we 
need to put these investments to work.
  We also need to put the resources to work that are called for in this 
legislation beyond Iraq. That is why it is so important that the 
conference committee include the $5 million downpayment on America's 
investment in a strong and independent and democratic Lebanon, free 
from interference from Syria. We all remember the courageous protests 
in the streets of Beirut earlier this year. Yet despite this brave show

[[Page 9032]]

of support for freedom, the President's supplemental included no 
funding for strengthening democracy in Lebanon. That would have been a 
missed opportunity, and I am delighted that the conference committee 
kept this funding in the conference report.
  At the same time, we need to ensure that the enormous investment our 
taxpayers are making in this bill is invested carefully. We were all 
painfully familiar with the reports from Iraq of security personnel 
that received training only to turn and run when confronted with 
insurgents, or even the instances where personnel we paid to train 
turned their weapons on our own troops.
  That is why I am so pleased the conference report includes the 
amendment I included during our debate in the Senate regarding the 
hundreds of millions of dollars we are investing in Afghan security 
forces. Like our successful efforts to invest increased resources in 
Colorado police officers when I served as Colorado State attorney 
general, my amendment simply says that we are prepared to pay to train 
Afghan forces, provided they are prepared to accept greater 
accountability and standards of excellence. That is the least the 
American people should expect, and I commend the conference committee 
for adopting that amendment.
  I also want to comment on inadequacies that I see in the conference 
report. As a new Member of the Senate, I have to express my surprise at 
the partisan nature of the conference committee report itself. This is 
a shame because the rest of the country does not see supporting our 
troops as a partisan issue. It seems to me that in a time of war, we 
can do better than a conference committee that meets purely on partisan 
lines, better than a conference committee that cuts out proposals that 
passed this Chamber with overwhelming majorities, and better than a 
conference committee that inserts a proposal to overturn decades of 
American asylum policy, a policy that protects the world's most 
vulnerable people, even though a Senate committee has never reviewed 
that policy.
  The conference report provides an increase in the fallen hero 
compensation to $100,000 for all combat-related deaths, similar to 
language proposed in the Senate committee. Regrettably, it omits the 
Kerry amendment, which I cosponsored and which was adopted by an 
overwhelming bipartisan majority of this body, that would have assured 
that all the families in the military who have died since 9/11 would be 
eligible to receive $100,000 in fallen hero compensation. Similarly, 
just as insurgent attacks began to spike, this conference report also 
omits much of the additional funding for up-armored humvees, 
overwhelmingly passed in the form of an amendment sponsored by Senator 
Bayh.
  As we see more and more reservists and guards men and women deployed 
to Iraq, the conference report omits protections for these patriots and 
their families.
  The amendment would have ensured that Federal employees who have been 
activated in the Guard or Reserves do not suffer any loss in salary as 
a result of their willingness to take on this patriotic assignment. I 
do not understand why the conference deleted the payment protections 
afforded these families by the Durbin amendment.
  While the conference committee could not protect these important 
provisions for our troops and their families, somehow this conference, 
led by Members of the House of Representatives, did find time to 
include within this wartime supplemental a huge proposal that has never 
received a hearing in the Senate.
  I will say this about the so-called REAL ID Act included in this 
bill: It does nothing to address the calls of many Coloradans for 
serious border strengthening.
  It will not reduce the flow of undocumented immigrants who come to 
the United States. Instead, it will heap an unfunded mandate on the 
States, passing onto the States our duty to protect our borders. At the 
same time, it denies protection to refugees who come to this country 
seeking freedom from religious and political persecution.
  Let's be clear what those protections are for. They are for the 
world's most vulnerable people who come to this country seeking freedom 
and safety from persecution. They include Christians fleeing 
persecution in Egypt, democracy activists fleeing violence in West 
Africa, and women fleeing abuse in Somalia. While the issue of 
immigration is an issue that necessarily deserves attention in our 
Nation's Capitol today, this is not the way to go.
  Mr. President, it is time that we get the funding contemplated in 
this legislation to our troops. It has been delayed long enough. I 
intend to vote for it, and I hope my colleagues will do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to see that Senators have 
endorsed the conference report in a bipartisan way. We appreciate the 
support that this is receiving. In every conference, there are always 
issues that arise that cannot be resolved to suit all Senators or all 
Members of the other body. But I must say to the Senate that this was a 
conference that was open, fair, and it allowed for the participation of 
all conferees, both parties in the Senate, and the same with the House. 
We had two sessions; one was in the Capitol over on the House side and 
another was on the Senate side in the Mansfield Room, where any Senator 
or any Member from the House who wanted to speak before the conference 
had the right to do so. In addition, Members had the opportunity to 
offer motions, amendments, or suggestions for the benefit of members of 
the conference.
  I was very pleased to acknowledge, at the time, the important 
participation of the ranking member on the Democratic side in the 
Senate committee, Senator Byrd, who took an active role in the 
discussions, who offered a motion at one point to insist upon the 
position of the Senate in the conference. Other members could have done 
the same or argued against including any provision of the House-passed 
bill.
  There has been some discussion today about the REAL ID provision. I 
didn't think that was a wonderful idea myself. It was not included in 
the Senate bill. It was a House provision. But the House Members 
insisted that it be included in the conference report. Anyone who 
wanted to resist that had an opportunity to argue against it or to 
offer a motion that the Senate insist upon its position that it not be 
included. No Senator elected to do that.
  I didn't know how many meetings were going to be required of the 
conference. I had no idea what the House would do in terms of insisting 
on provisions in this bill as that conference began. I was, frankly, 
surprised that we didn't have but two meetings of the conference. I 
expected that we would have other meetings. But the House didn't think 
it was important or necessary, and I got the impression that there were 
going to be no more meetings but only after the second meeting had 
concluded. Members of the committee continued to discuss issues with 
House conferees, and we finally reached agreement.
  I think this is a good conference report. It is a reasonable 
compromise between the two bills that were passed by the House and the 
Senate. We didn't get everything we wanted in the conference with the 
House; neither did the House get everything they wanted in conference 
with our Senate conferees. But I think this is a fair conference 
report. It reflects a commitment to support the President, to provide 
funding that is needed for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
It is an urgent supplemental bill, and it ought to be passed today by 
the Senate. I am confident that it will be.
  I appreciate very much the assistance and the affirmative way members 
of our conference worked to ensure that we could get a conference 
report that would be adopted by the Senate. I think we have 
accomplished that goal.
  I am proud of the work that was done by the members of our staffs. 
They worked very, very hard in the preparation of the conference report 
that is before the Senate today. I especially want to thank our staff 
director, Keith Kennedy; Terry Sauvain, his counterpart on the 
Democratic side; Chuck

[[Page 9033]]

Keiffer on the Democratic side, who also worked very hard; Charlie 
Houy, who has been a stalwart member of the staff of the Defense 
Appropriations Subcommittee for many years; Rebecca Davies on the 
Homeland Security Appropriations Committee; Sid Ashworth, the clerk of 
the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Senator Stevens, chairman of 
that subcommittee and former chairman of the full committee, was 
enormously influential in this conference. I have been very grateful 
for his support and assistance. I also thank Clayton Heil, counsel to 
our Senate Committee on Appropriations, who has been very helpful as 
well. And there are others.
  Mr. President, I appreciate the assistance of other Senators on the 
full Committee on Appropriations. We had strong support in the signing 
of the conference report. It has been a bipartisan achievement. It is 
not a partisan bill, and we appreciate the fact that it is not.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous 
consent that the time under the quorum be charged equally to each side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, in a time of war, nothing is more 
important than making sure that our fighting men and women have what 
they need to do their jobs well. It is with our troops in mind that I 
will vote in favor of this supplemental appropriations conference 
report.
  Having said that, I do have some major concerns about how this bill 
has been put together and how the Congress has conducted its business 
with respect to such emergency spending requests over the past several 
years.
  Thousands of brave Americans have been serving our country in war 
zones since shortly after that fateful day of September 11, 2001. But 4 
years later, the President and those of us in this Congress continue to 
refuse to budget for these wartime expenses. Rather than incorporating 
the costs of the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget, 
these important expenditures continue to be tagged as ``emergency 
spending.'' Emergency spending should be reserved, in my view, for 
unforeseen needs.
  We know, however, that the need for additional funding for our 
campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan is something we should expect and be 
able to budget for. Unfortunately, this is not new for this Congress or 
for the Bush administration. This is, I believe, the fourth consecutive 
time that funding for military operations in Iraq and in Afghanistan 
have been requested outside the regular budgeting and appropriations 
process.
  By not taking into consideration the costs of these supplemental 
requests, which we all know are coming, the President and the Congress 
can more easily fudge the true nature of our Federal deficits and what 
our spending assumptions will be over the foreseeable future. In other 
words, by keeping the spending out of the budget, the President and 
this Congress can paint a fiscal picture that is, frankly, rosier than 
reality.
  Contrast, if you will, what we are doing today with what we did 
during the Vietnam conflict, the conflict I served in and I know others 
of us did as well. After one supplemental appropriations in 1966, 
President Johnson and later President Nixon included the cost of our 
military operations in Vietnam in their annual budget requests, not in 
emergency supplemental after emergency supplemental. They requested 
them in their annual budget request. That approach was the right 
approach. Whether people approved of the war in Vietnam and our 
involvement there, at least the approach of budgeting for it was 
appropriate. I believe we owe it to the American people, who are very 
aware of the cost and nature of our operations, to be upfront about the 
true state of our country's finances.
  To make a second point, there have been times in the last several 
years when the House has passed a bill, the Senate has passed a bill, 
we convene a conference committee, and the House and Senate, Democrats 
and Republicans, have a full and open opportunity to participate in 
that conference committee.
  Concerns have been raised. I think the chairman of this committee is, 
quite frankly, as fairminded a person as I know. It is a real joy to 
serve with him. I have said it to him privately and I will say it to 
him publicly. But I have heard reports back from those who felt they 
did not have opportunity extended to them to actually offer amendments 
in committee that they felt they had been assured they would have a 
chance to offer. That is a matter of concern to me and I think it would 
be if the shoe were on the other foot.
  Third subject, REAL ID. There was an amendment I alluded to offered 
by Senator Durbin that passed the Senate. It passed the Senate 99 to 0. 
The amendment would have helped to compensate Federal employees who 
were called to active duty who were making more money as a Federal 
employee than they were after they had been activated to active duty. 
We passed by a 99-to-0 vote a provision that said we should make up the 
shortfall in those instances. That particular amendment that was passed 
by a 99-to-0 vote was left out of the conference report. I know other 
items were never considered by the Senate. A prime example of that is 
the controversial REAL ID proposal somehow did find its way into the 
legislation. As I recall, we never had a chance on the Senate floor to 
even discuss the REAL ID issue. It was not part of our supplemental 
bill. Yet when the final bill comes up, we are looking at 55 pages of 
new immigration law that this body has never debated and which was 
inserted at the behest of the House Republican leadership.
  I have a serious concern about whether these immigration provisions 
make sense. I know some feel they do, but I have some real concerns. 
The REAL ID Act, for example, would repeal the driver's license 
standards framework we created last year in the Intelligence Reform 
Act, which is based on the recommendations made unanimously by the 9/11 
Commission. In place of the 9/11 Commission framework, REAL ID would 
create an entirely new and expensive Federal standard for the issuance 
of driver's licenses but provide no funding to my State, Mississippi, 
South Carolina, or any other State, for that matter. As a former 
Governor, I believe such unfunded mandates should not be considered 
lightly.
  Furthermore, I have heard from a number of constituents in my own 
State who are concerned that the bill would make it more difficult for 
those fleeing religious persecution to gain asylum, while allowing the 
Secretary of Homeland Security to waive all laws in order to build a 
fence along our borders.
  In this post-9/11 world we know it is vital to ensure security not 
only along our borders but also within our Nation. However, instead of 
thoroughly considering homeland security and immigration reform 
measures, the House has hastily tacked on legislation that could have 
potential negative consequences for the Latino and other immigrant 
communities in my State and across our country. I think we should have 
had a proper debate to ensure that this legislation would actually 
protect our Nation and make us more secure.
  The last thing I want to mention deals with Israel and the peace 
process there. I returned from that part of the world about 5 weeks 
ago, convinced there is an opening, a possibility, however difficult to 
achieve, that Israelis and Palestinians may find common ground; that 
the Palestinians finally have a chance to end up with a homeland of 
their own and to live side by side in a separate state, in a 
geographical area with the Israelis, who would have peaceful and secure 
borders and reasonable economic and diplomatic relations with their 
Arab neighbors.

[[Page 9034]]

  I came back and called Secretary Rice and said, we ought to be 
putting as much energy and time and attention into trying to forge a 
final compromise, a final peaceful resolution, in Israel. To the extent 
we can do that between the Palestinians and the Israelis, we would 
probably do more to reduce the ability of terrorists to raise money, to 
reduce the ability of terrorists to recruit new terrorists, to reduce 
their ability to convince people in some kind of unholy jihad to go out 
and blow themselves up and kill a lot of innocent people.
  If the United States can somehow emerge from a peace process in the 
Middle East and Israel and be seen as the honest broker in helping the 
Israelis and the Palestinians get to a fair and peaceful permanent 
resolution, we would do more to set back the terrorists and end the war 
on terrorism, to make us safer in this country, to make people safer in 
Israel, in Palestinian-controlled areas, to make people safer in Iraq 
and Afghanistan as well.
  When I was in Israel, I had the opportunity to travel to Ramallah. 
During that trip, we were behind a flatbed truck. As that truck went 
from Israeli-controlled territory into the West Bank, it had to go 
through a checkpoint. At the checkpoint, literally everything on the 
flatbed truck had to be removed and moved on to another flatbed truck 
in order to make sure there was not contraband, explosives or something 
there that would represent an endangerment to other people.
  One of the best ways to ensure that terrorists still have plenty of 
places from which to recruit new terrorists in that part of the world 
is to ensure that the rate of unemployment in Palestinian-controlled 
areas remains at about 50 percent. It is in our interest, it is in the 
interest of the Israelis, it certainly is in the interest of 
Palestinians who want peace and a better life, for us to help bring 
down the rate of unemployment.
  The way to do that is not to have trucks go from one part of that 
area to stop at a checkpoint and offload on to a new truck. There has 
to be a free flow of people and a free flow of goods, a free flow of 
commerce in that part of the world in order to help get the Palestinian 
economy up and on its feet and to bring down unemployment.
  My parents used to say to me, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. 
Well, people who do not have anything to do with their time are also 
prime for being recruited as terrorists. To the extent we can help 
bring down the unemployment rate in the Palestinian communities, we 
also bring down the likelihood they are going to be recruited to become 
terrorists.
  In the bill that passed the Senate, there is a provision for some 
$200 million to support Palestinian political, economic, and security 
reforms. As we have gone through the process in conference, roughly the 
same amount of money has emerged, and it is not going directly to the 
Palestinian Authority. A portion of that, maybe $50 million, will end 
up going to the Government of Israel as they try to create high-
security checkpoints which would allow that truck I talked about 
earlier to go through a high-tech security checkpoint and not have to 
be offloaded. It would enable people to move freely who are trying to 
get a job or going to a job from Palestinian areas to Israeli areas or 
vice versa, without being impeded from doing that, or having to spend 
hours trying to get through a checkpoint.
  At the same time, we have the ability through the technology of today 
to stop the terrorists. People who are carrying contraband or 
explosives or stuff that will enable them to hurt other people can be 
stopped at these checkpoints. There is money in this bill that would 
enable the Israelis to help build terminals, checkpoints for folks to 
pass through, Palestinians or Israelis, for that matter, to reduce the 
likelihood of terrorist incidents that will grow out of that movement 
of people, and to better ensure that goods and services in commerce can 
move about freely. So that is a good thing.
  There are some who will quarrel with whether the money should have 
gone directly to the Palestinian Authority or whether it is more 
appropriate to go through other organizations that we call NGOs. I am 
not going to get into that argument.
  I say to my friend from Mississippi, we may have a chance later on--
maybe in the Foreign Affairs appropriations bill or the foreign 
operations bill--to come back and revisit this issue and decide 
whether, given the reforms that are being made in the Palestinian 
Authority through reduced corruption, to tamp down on terrorism within 
organizations such as Hamas, we may have the opportunity to come back 
and decide whether to allocate some additional money later this year to 
strengthen the position of President Abbas and to reward positive 
behavior on his behalf and that of other Palestinians.
  So those are points I wanted to make. I am going to recap them again 
very briefly. First, the concern as we go forward for us to take as an 
example the budgeting approach used by earlier administrations, 
Democrat and Republican, President Johnson, President Nixon, at least 
in terms of funding the Vietnam war. After the first emergency 
supplemental appropriation, fiscal year 1966, they said we are going to 
make part of our regular budget request moneys to support that war 
effort. Again, we ought to do the same thing now going forward.
  Second, I call on our Republican friends to remember the Golden Rule, 
to treat other people the way we want to be treated. As we go forward 
in these conference committees, to the extent we treat people fairly 
from our side, some day when we are in the majority--and some day we 
will be--more likely we will end up with a situation where the 
minority, in that case the Republicans, will be treated fairly, too.
  On REAL ID, it will be interesting to see what the States come up 
with in response to these unfunded mandates. I don't like unfunded 
mandates. I never liked them as a Governor. I don't like it now. 
Whenever we in Washington figure out that we ought to tell the States 
and local governments how to spend the money, we don't provide the 
money. We tell them how to raise the money, or not raise the money, but 
we do not provide an offset. That is a slippery slope. I think we are 
on that slippery slope with respect to this REAL ID provision.
  Finally, on the Palestinian peace initiative, I think it is important 
to promote investments in the Palestinian areas to get their economy 
moving again, and it is important we help fund security measures that 
enable the free flow of commerce, of people and goods in and out of the 
Palestinian areas so they can reduce their unemployment rates and 
reduce the threats of terrorism.
  With that having been said, I am going to stop here. I suggest the 
absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I want to speak as to how I am 
going to vote. Clearly, the necessity of funding for all of our troops 
requires a ``yes'' vote on this legislation. I gladly do that. I do 
want to express my concerns about this so-called REAL ID part that was 
put in in the dead of night, without the notification that was promised 
to the minority and without the informing of all the various Senators 
who were part of the conference committee. This is not the way we 
should be doing legislation. It ought to be in the full light of day. 
That is why they refer to making legislation is like making sausage--
you don't know what all is in it.
  With regard to this REAL ID Act, the concern that I have is that we 
are going to have an invasion of people's privacy without having 
carefully considered it through committee hearings and through full 
debate of the issue. For something that is as important to so many 
Americans as a driver's license, we are going to start on the road of 
the invasion of privacy. I do not

[[Page 9035]]

think this is the way to establish what is, in effect, the first step 
for a national identification card. I don't think this is the way to do 
it, in the dead of night, by stealth and sleight of hand.
  Second, I think Senators are going to get an earful if they are 
starting to get the rumblings that I am getting from constituents in my 
State. When most people find out they have to haul out a birth 
certificate when they go down to reestablish their driver's license, it 
is going to cause a great inconvenience, especially to the senior 
citizens of this country. I think Senators are going to get an earful.
  Third, I am quite concerned about the implication that this is going 
to have on the rights and protections of minorities. Is this the 
beginning, portending certain discriminations because of minorities?
  Obviously, this is a must-pass piece of legislation. It is funding 
the war effort. It is funding our troops. We are all going to vote for 
it, and we will pass it. But we should not have something that is so 
important to the privacy rights of Americans added to a bill like this 
in this secretive way.
  I wanted my comments made very clearly on the record.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I have something else as long as we are in a holding 
pattern. What is the pleasure of the majority leader? Does he want to 
go on and call for the vote or does he want to have some more time 
before the vote, in which I will speak on another subject?
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I have not talked to the Democratic leader, 
but I think if we are about ready to vote, then what I might do is go 
ahead and do my statement in the interest of time, unless there is 
something just burning that the distinguished Senator from Florida has 
to say. I will go ahead and do my statement and then--if the Democratic 
leader is available?
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. I will tell the Senator that I have something 
that is really burning because they are trying to drill for oil off the 
coast of Florida. But I am going to yield to the majority leader and to 
his wishes so he can expedite the process and the vote.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I apologize for Senators having to wait for 
me. I want to begin by saying I support this legislation. I commend the 
work of the managers of the bill, Senator Cochran and Senator Byrd. I 
understand how essential this bill is to our troops who are risking 
their lives and, of course, to the tsunami victims who are struggling 
to rebuild their lives.
  The conference report, though, comes up short on two issues: Iraq 
and, of course, immigration--short of what the world rightly expects 
from the most free nation in the world, and short of what Americans 
should expect from their elected leaders is what is written all over 
this conference report.
  Starting with Iraq, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
recently said that the insurgency is as strong today as it was a year 
ago. The recent upsurge in violence and unrest in Iraq seems to bear 
out that remarkable and very troubling conclusion. Yet the 
administration acts as if the situation in Iraq is essentially under 
control and the remaining difficulties are Iraq's problems.
  The unfortunate truth seems to be that more than 2 years after 
President Bush declared the end of major combat operations--remember 
``mission accomplished''--Iraq has a limited capacity to defend itself 
or govern itself.
  Even worse, the administration has no real plan to help Iraq acquire 
that capacity. As much as the President may want to dump Iraq's 
problems on the new Iraqi Government, his administration has a 
responsibility to our troops and the Iraqi people to help address these 
problems and to inform Congress how he plans to do so.
  I would underscore that this supplemental appropriations bill should 
not have had to come before this body at this time. It should have been 
in our regular budget. This war is ongoing. There is no reason to do it 
in this way.
  I have supported and the Senate passed an amendment crafted by 
Senators Durbin, Levin, and Kennedy requiring the administration to 
inform us of its efforts and plans for securing and stabilizing Iraq. 
Unfortunately, Republican conferees dropped the important amendment 
from the text of this bill.
  As troubled as I am by the Republican majority's actions on Iraq, I 
am perhaps more disturbed by what they decided to do on immigration, 
and how they went about it.
  Republicans tacked the so-called REAL ID immigration legislation onto 
this emergency supplemental that is to provide funding for our troops. 
REAL ID imposes dramatic new burdens on the States and substantially 
alters the immigration and asylum laws in ways that this Nation may 
soon come to regret the action taken by this body.
  For the House to self-righteously say that on appropriations bills 
they will allow no authorizing legislation, people can always waive 
this REAL ID--this is the mother of all authorizing legislation on an 
appropriations bill.
  This REAL ID Act makes reckless and unwise changes to our laws with 
respect to the environment, refugees, judicial review and, most of all, 
States rights. It is essentially anti-immigrant legislation couched in 
the language of antiterrorism. The Wall Street Journal, not the bastion 
of the so-called liberal press, said the changes made by REAL ID ``have 
long occupied the wish list of anti-immigration lawmakers and 
activists.'' That is the Wall Street Journal.
  REAL ID will make it much more difficult for individuals fleeing 
persecution to seek asylum in the United States, will sharply reduce 
the ability of the Federal courts to rein in overzealous or ill-willed 
administration officials, and will give the Secretary of Homeland 
Security unprecedented authority to waive environmental and other laws.
  REAL ID could compromise the privacy of American citizens, create 
long lines at local DMVs, and make it harder for States and the Federal 
Government to keep track of who is in our country. In short, REAL ID 
may make us less rather than more safe.
  As troubling as what the majority did on immigration is the way they 
went about it. Republicans tacked on REAL ID knowing full well 
immigration issues had nothing to do, as I have said before, with the 
underlying legislation and that REAL ID had never, ever been considered 
in the Senate, either in the Judiciary Committee, the committee of 
jurisdiction, I believe, or on the Senate floor.
  Compounding matters, House and Senate Republican conferees went 
behind closed doors without Democrats and included a modified version 
of REAL ID.
  What so troubles me is that the Republicans have the votes. They are 
in the majority. They had the majority in the conference. But they 
refused to have up-or-down votes so the public could see what they were 
doing. They had the ability to turn down every amendment we offered, 
but they were unwilling to do that.
  They rejected a bipartisan plea to give REAL ID and other immigration 
issues the time and attention they deserved, and limited opportunities 
for opponents of REAL ID to offer motions to strike or change what they 
agreed to.
  As a result of the Republicans' decision to incorporate REAL ID and 
their abuse of the process, most Democratic conferees either refused to 
sign the conference report or did so while taking strong exception to 
the REAL ID provision.
  I am also disappointed about the White House's role in this matter. 
For years now, the administration has been talking about the need to 
reform immigration laws. Remember the big trip President Bush made, 
when he was first elected, to meet with President Fox in Mexico? They 
have been talking about the need for reform, so law-abiding, hard-
working immigrants can find work in this country, help our economy 
grow, and support their families here and back, mostly, in Mexico. 
Since this legislation will hurt hundreds of thousands of the very 
people the administration professes to be concerned about, I would have 
expected

[[Page 9036]]

the President to oppose it. Unfortunately, he chose not to do so.
  The best thing we could do for our security would be to enact 
comprehensive and effective immigration reform so we can gain control 
once again over our borders and focus our limited resources on 
terrorists and criminals.
  Senator Frist has indicated he is willing to set aside time for a 
separate debate about immigration later this year, and I know he will 
follow through on that. That is what he said he would do. The Senate 
and the American people deserve time to consider this issue and time to 
revisit many of this legislation's most problematic provisions.
  Finally, I think our ability to succeed in Iraq should have received 
much greater attention in this bill, and immigration should have been 
dealt with more thoughtfully and thoroughly in a subsequent legislative 
vehicle. Our troops and taxpayers are expecting solutions and 
leadership from the President and the Congress. The world is expecting 
this Nation to live up to some of the lofty immigration rhetoric 
espoused by the administration early on. I regret the majority acted in 
this fashion. I look forward to opportunities to revisit these unwise 
decisions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, in a few minutes we will vote on the 
President's war and tsunami supplemental request. I take this 
opportunity to thank Chairman Thad Cochran, as well as Senator Byrd, 
for their leadership on behalf of our men and women in uniform. This is 
one of the first major appropriations for Senator Cochran under his 
chairmanship of the full committee, and I do congratulate him for a job 
superbly done. I also thank Senator Stevens and Senator Inouye. I am 
confident we have a bill that will shortly be overwhelmingly supported 
on both sides of the aisle.
  The legislation before us is absolutely critical to winning the war 
on terror. It provides $75.9 billion in support of our troops who are 
out in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan courageously hunting down the 
enemy, helping rebuild these countries, and spreading freedom and 
democracy.
  We are indebted to our soldiers, and this legislation reflects our 
deep commitment to their readiness, to their safety, to their families' 
well-being.
  This weekend, U.S. troops launched a major counterinsurgency 
offensive in western Iraq near the Syrian border. This region has 
become an infamous smuggling route and sanctuary for foreign jihadists. 
So far, our troops have killed over 100 of the terrorists, and they 
continue to press the enemy back.
  Meanwhile, this weekend, our military announced the capture of a top 
Zarqawi associate, Amar Zubaydi. He was apprehended in a raid on his 
home last Thursday. Zubaydi is an extremely dangerous man. He is 
believed responsible for multiple car bombings across Baghdad, as well 
as the attack on the Abu Ghraib prison last month which wounded 44 U.S. 
troops and 13 detainees. Authorities also discovered he was planning 
the assassination of a top Iraqi Government official.
  The good news is he is now in custody where he can no longer wreak 
his havoc. Military sources tell us Zubaydi's capture has provided 
invaluable insights into the Zarqawi wing of the al-Qaida network.
  This arrest, along with the capture of Ghassan Amin in late April and 
Abu Farraj al-Libbi in Pakistan last week, further tightens the noose. 
Indeed, we intercepted a note by one of their colleagues complaining of 
the group's low morale.
  Osama bin Laden and al-Zarqawi will be brought to justice, just as 
Saddam and his henchmen now sit in prison. Our brave men and women in 
uniform and their colleagues across the U.S. Government are risking 
their lives and working hard every day to bring that moment ever 
closer.
  I urge my fellow Senators to pass the supplemental swiftly so we can 
get this support to our military men and women in the field--and also, 
I should add, to the victims of the December tsunami tragedy. The war 
supplemental includes nearly $880 million in relief funds to help 
people in countries devastated by that deadly wave.
  Furthermore, it includes nearly $630 million to increase security at 
our borders by hiring 500 new border agents and tightening our driver's 
license ID requirements.
  America is leading the war on terror, and we are making great 
progress. As this supplemental appropriations demonstrates, we are a 
strong Nation, and we are a compassionate Nation.
  I look forward to an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on this critical 
legislation in a few moments. Our troops and our fellow citizens are 
depending on it.
  Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we yield back the time on our side.
  Mr. CONRAD. Mr. President, I yield back our time as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
  The question is on adoption of the conference report. The yeas and 
nays have been ordered. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The result was announced--yeas 100, nays 0, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 117 Leg.]

                               YEAS--100

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Bond
     Boxer
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Burr
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Coburn
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Corzine
     Craig
     Crapo
     Dayton
     DeMint
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Frist
     Graham
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Inouye
     Isakson
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Kyl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     Martinez
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Obama
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Salazar
     Santorum
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Thune
     Vitter
     Voinovich
     Warner
     Wyden
  The conference report was agreed to.
  Mr. COCHRAN. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LOTT. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi is recognized.

                          ____________________